Never shall souls like these Escape the Eumenides, The daughters dark of Acheron and Night!
Unquenched our torches glare, Our scourges in the air Send forth prophetic sounds before they smite.
Never by lapse of time The soul defaced by crime Into its former self returns again;For every guilty deed Holds in itself the seed Of retribution and undying pain.
Never shall be the loss Restored, till Helios Hath purified them with his heavenly fires;Then what was lost is won, And the new life begun, Kindled with nobler passions and desires.
THE HANGING OF THE CRANE
I
The lights are out, and gone are all the guests That thronging came with merriment and jests To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane In the new house,--into the night are gone;But still the fire upon the hearth burns on, And I alone remain.
O fortunate, O happy day, When a new household finds its place Among the myriad homes of earth, Like a new star just sprung to birth, And rolled on its harmonious way Into the boundless realms of space!
So said the guests in speech and song, As in the chimney, burning bright, We hung the iron crane to-night, And merry was the feast and long.
II
And now I sit and muse on what may be, And in my vision see, or seem to see, Through floating vapors interfused with light, Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade, As shadows passing into deeper shade Sink and elude the sight.
For two alone, there in the hall, As spread the table round and small;Upon the polished silver shine The evening lamps, but, more divine, The light of love shines over all;Of love, that says not mine and thine, But ours, for ours is thine and mine.
They want no guests, to come between Their tender glances like a screen, And tell them tales of land and sea, And whatsoever may betide The great, forgotten world outside;They want no guests; they needs must be Each other's own best company.
III
The picture fades; as at a village fair A showman's views, dissolving into air, Again appear transfigured on the screen, So in my fancy this; and now once more, In part transfigured, through the open door Appears the selfsame scene.
Seated, I see the two again, But not alone; they entertain A little angel unaware, With face as round as is the moon;A royal guest with flaxen hair, Who, throned upon his lofty chair, Drums on the table with his spoon, Then drops it careless on the floor, To grasp at things unseen before.
Are these celestial manners? these The ways that win, the arts that please?
Ah yes; consider well the guest, And whatsoe'er he does seems best;He ruleth by the right divine Of helplessness, so lately born In purple chambers of the morn, As sovereign over thee and thine.
He speaketh not; and yet there lies A conversation in his eyes;The golden silence of the Greek, The gravest wisdom of the wise, Not spoken in language, but in looks More legible than printed books, As if he could but would not speak.
And now, O monarch absolute, Thy power is put to proof; for, lo!
Resistless, fathomless, and slow, The nurse comes rustling like the sea, And pushes back thy chair and thee, And so good night to King Canute.
IV
As one who walking in a forest sees A lovely landscape through the parted frees, Then sees it not, for boughs that intervene Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed Through drifting clouds, and then again concealed, So I behold the scene.
There are two guests at table now;
The king, deposed and older grown, No longer occupies the throne,--The crown is on his sister's brow;
A Princess from the Fairy Isles, The very pattern girl of girls.
All covered and embowered in curls, Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers, And sailing with soft, silken sails From far-off Dreamland into ours.
Above their bowls with rims of blue Four azure eyes of deeper hue Are looking, dreamy with delight;Limpid as planets that emerge Above the ocean's rounded verge, Soft-shining through the summer night.
Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see Beyond the horizon of their bowls;Nor care they for the world that rolls With all its freight of troubled souls Into the days that are to be.
V
Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene, Again the drifting vapors intervene, And the moon's pallid disk is hidden quite;And now I see the table wider grown, As round a pebble into water thrown Dilates a ring of light.
I see the table wider grown, I see it garlanded with guests, As if fair Ariadne's Crown Out of the sky had fallen down;Maidens within whose tender breasts A thousand restless hopes and fears, Forth reaching to the coming years, Flutter awhile, then quiet lie Like timid birds that fain would fly, But do not dare to leave their nests;--And youths, who in their strength elate Challenge the van and front of fate, Eager as champions to be In the divine knight-errantry Of youth, that travels sea and land Seeking adventures, or pursues, Through cities, and through solitudes Frequented by the lyric Muse, The phantom with the beckoning hand, That still allures and still eludes.
O sweet illusions of the brain!
O sudden thrills of fire and frost!
The world is bright while ye remain, And dark and dead when ye are lost!
VI
The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still, Quickens its current as it nears the mill;And so the stream of Time that lingereth In level places, and so dull appears, Runs with a swifter current as it nears The gloomy mills of Death.
And now, like the magician's scroll, That in the owner's keeping shrinks With every wish he speaks or thinks, Till the last wish consumes the whole, The table dwindles, and again I see the two alone remain.
The crown of stars is broken in parts;
Its jewels, brighter than the day, Have one by one been stolen away To shine in other homes and hearts.
One is a wanderer now afar In Ceylon or in Zanzibar, Or sunny regions of Cathay;And one is in the boisterous camp Mid clink of arms and horses' tramp, And battle's terrible array.