Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc | Page 3

of his head: Earth and ocean shall be shadows when Prometheus shall be dead.
Fame around her warriors living rang through Greece and lightened,
[_Str. 2._ Moving equal with their stature, stately with their strength: Thebes and Laced?mon at their breathing presence brightened, Sense or sound of them filled all the live land's breadth and
length.?All the lesser tribes put on the pure Athenian fashion, One Hellenic heart was from the mountains to the sea: Sparta's bitter self grew sweet with high half-human passion, And her dry thorns flushed aflower in strait Thermopyl?. Fruitless yet the flowers had fallen, and all the deeds died
fruitless,?Save that tongues of after men, the children of her peace, Took the tale up of her glories, transient else and rootless, And in ears and hearts of all men left the praise of Greece. Fair the war-time was when still, as beacon answering beacon, Sea to land flashed fight, and thundered note of wrath or cheer; But the strength of noonday night hath power to waste and weaken, Nor may light be passed from hand to hand of year to year If the dying deed be saved not, ere it die for ever,?By the hands and lips of men more wise than years are strong; If the soul of man take heed not that the deed die never, Clothed about with purple and gold of story, crowned with song. Still the burning heart of boy and man alike rejoices, Hearing words which made it seem of old for all who sang That their heaven of heavens waxed happier when from free men's
voices?_Well-beloved Harmodius and Aristogeiton_ rang.?Never fell such fragrance from the flower-month's rose-red kirtle As from chaplets on the bright friends' brows who slew their
lord:?Greener grew the leaf and balmier blew the flower of myrtle When its blossom sheathed the sheer tyrannicidal sword. None so glorious garland crowned the feast Panathen?an As this wreath too frail to fetter fast the Cyprian dove: None so fiery song sprang sunwards annual as the p?an?Praising perfect love of friends and perfect country's love.
Higher than highest of all those heavens wherefrom the starry
[_Ant. 2._ Song of Homer shone above the rolling fight,?Gleams like spring's green bloom on boughs all gaunt and gnarry Soft live splendour as of flowers of foam in flight, Glows a glory of mild-winged maidens upward mounting?Sheer through air made shrill with strokes of smooth swift wings Round the rocks beyond foot's reach, past eyesight's counting, Up the cleft where iron wind of winter rings?Round a God fast clenched in iron jaws of fetters,?Him who culled for man the fruitful flower of fire,?Bared the darkling scriptures writ in dazzling letters, Taught the truth of dreams deceiving men's desire,?Gave their water-wandering chariot-seats of ocean?Wings, and bade the rage of war-steeds champ the rein, Showed the symbols of the wild birds' wheeling motion, Waged for man's sake war with God and all his train. Earth, whose name was also Righteousness, a mother?Many-named and single-natured, gave him breath?Whence God's wrath could wring but this word and none other-- _He may smite me, yet he shall not do to death._?Him the tongue that sang triumphant while tormented?Sang as loud the sevenfold storm that roared erewhile Round the towers of Thebes till wrath might rest contented: Sang the flight from smooth soft-sanded banks of Nile, When like mateless doves that fly from snare or tether Came the suppliants landwards trembling as they trod, And the prayer took wing from all their tongues together-- _King of kings, most holy of holies, blessed God._?But what mouth may chant again, what heart may know it, All the rapture that all hearts of men put on?When of Salamis the time-transcending poet?Sang, whose hand had chased the Mede at Marathon?
Darker dawned the song with stormier wings above the watch-fire
spread [_Ep. 2._ Whence from Ida toward the hill of Hermes leapt the light that said Troy was fallen, a torch funereal for the king's triumphal head. Dire indeed the birth of Leda's womb that had God's self to sire Bloomed, a flower of love that stung the soul with fangs that gnaw
like fire:?But the twin-born human-fathered sister-flower bore fruit more
dire.?Scarce the cry that called on airy heaven and all swift winds on
wing,?Wells of river-heads, and countless laugh of waves past reckoning, Earth which brought forth all, and the orb��d sun that looks on
everything,?Scarce that cry fills yet men's hearts more full of heart-devouring
dread?Than the murderous word said mocking, how the child whose blood he
shed?Might clasp fast and kiss her father where the dead salute the
dead.?But the latter note of anguish from the lips that mocked her lord, When her son's hand bared against the breast that suckled him his
sword,?How might man endure, O ?schylus, to hear it and record? How might man endure, being mortal yet, O thou most highest, to
hear??How