Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

LUCRETIUS.

LUCILIA, wedded to Lucretius, found Her master cold; for when the morning flush

Of passion and the first embrace had died Between them, tho' he lov'd her none the less,

Yet often when the woman heard his foot Return from pacings in the field, and ran To greet him with a kiss, the master took Small notice, or austerely, for-his mind Half buried in some weightier argument, Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise And long roll of the Hexameter-he past To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls

Left by the Teacher, whom he held divine. She brook'd it not; but wrathful, petulant, Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch

Who brew'd the philtre which had power, they said,

To lead an errant passion home again. And this, at times, she mingled with his

drink,

And this destroy'd him; for the wicked broth

Confused the chemic labour of the blood, And tickling the brute brain within the man's

Made havock among those tender cells, and check'd

His power to shape: he loathed himself; and once

After a tempest woke upon a morn That mock'd him with returning calm, and cried:

'Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the rain

Rushing; and once the flash of a

thunderbolt

[ocr errors]

'Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams!

For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Perchance

| We do but recollect the dreams that come Just ere the waking: terrible! for it seem'd A void was made in Nature; all her bonds Crack'd; and I saw the flaring atom

streams

And torrents of her myriad universe,
Ruining along the illimitable inane,
Fly on to clash together again, and make
Another and another frame of things
For ever that was mine, my dream, I
knew it-

Of and belonging to me, as the dog With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies

His function of the woodland: but the next!

I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed Came driving rainlike down again on earth,

And where it dash'd the reddening meadow, sprang

No dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth, For these I thought my dream would show to me,

But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art, Hired animalisms, vile as those that made The mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies

worse

Than aught they fable of the quiet Gods. And hands they mixt, and yell'd and

round me drove

In narrowing circles till I yell'd again Half-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw— Was it the first beam of my latest day ?

'Then, then, from utter gloom stood

out the breasts,

The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword

Now over and now under, now direct, Methought I never saw so fierce a fork— | Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down Struck out the streaming mountain-side,

and show'd

A riotous confluence of watercourses Blanching and billowing in a hollow of it, Where all but yester-eve was dusty-dry.

shamed

At all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire,
The fire that left a roofless Ilion,
Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that

I woke.

M

'Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine,

Because I would not one of thine own

doves,

Of Nature, when she strikes thro' the thick blood

Of cattle, and light is large, and lambs are glad

Not ev❜n a rose, were offer'd to thee? Nosing the mother's udder, and the bird Makes his heart voice amid the blaze of flowers:

thine,

Forgetful how my rich proœmion makes
Thy glory fly along the Italian field,
In lays that will outlast thy Deity?

[blocks in formation]

'Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant not her,

Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt

The Trojan, while his neat-herds were abroad;

Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept

Her Deity false in human-amorous tears;
Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter
Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods,
Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called
Calliope to grace his golden verse-
Ay, and this Kypris also did I take
That popular name of thine to shadow
forth

The all-generating powers and genial heat

[blocks in formation]

That he would only shine among the dead Hereafter; tales! for never yet on earth Could dead flesh creep, or bits of roasting ox

Moan round the spit-nor knows he what he sees;

King of the East altho' he seem, and girt With song and flame and fragrance, slowly lifts

His golden feet on those empurpled stairs That climb into the windy halls of heaven:

And here he glances on an eye new-born, And gets for greeting but a wail of pain; And here he stays upon a freezing orb That fain would gaze upon him to the last;

And here upon a yellow eyelid fall'n And closed by those who mourn a friend in vain,

Not thankful that his troubles are no

more.

And me, altho' his fire is on my face Blinding, he sees not, nor at all can tell Whether I mean this day to end myself, Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, That men like soldiers may not quit the post

Allotted by the Gods: but he that holds The Gods are careless, wherefore need he

care

Greatly for them, nor rather plunge at

once,

Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and sink

Past earthquake-ay, and gout and stone, that break

Body toward death, and palsy, death-inlife,

And wretched age-and worst disease of all,

These prodigies of myriad nakednesses,
And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable,
Abominable, strangers at my hearth
Not welcome, harpies miring every dish,
The phantom husks of something foully

done,

And fleeting thro' the boundless universe, And blasting the long quiet of my breast With animal heat and dire insanity?

[blocks in formation]

That ever butted his rough brother-brute
For lust or lusty blood or provender :

I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and
she

Why should I, beastlike as I find myself,
Not manlike end myself?—our privilege-
What beast has heart to do it? And what
man,

thus?

Loathes him as well; such a precipitate What Roman would be dragg'd in triumph heel, Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle- Not I; not he, who bears one name with wing, Whirls her to me: but will she fling Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom of kings,

herself,

Shameless upon me? Catch her, goat

foot: nay,

Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilder

ness,

And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do
I wish-

What? that the bush were leafless? or
to whelm

All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods,
I know you careless, yet, behold, to you
From childly wont and ancient use I
call-

I thought I lived securely as yourselves
No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey-
spite,

No madness of ambition, avarice, none:
No larger feast than under plane or pine
With neighbours laid along the grass, to
take

Only such cups as left us friendly-warm,
Affirming each his own philosophy—
Nothing to mar the sober majesties
Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life.

But now it seems some unseen monster

[blocks in formation]

her

[blocks in formation]

And perishes as I must; for O Thou,
Passionless bride, divine Tranquillity,
Yearn'd after by the wisest of the wise,
Who fail to find thee, being as thou art
Without one pleasure and without one
pain,

Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine
Or soon or late, yet out of season, thus
I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not
How roughly men may woo thee so they
win-

Thus-thus: the soul flies out and dies in the air.'

With that he drove the knife into his side:

She heard him raging, heard him fall; ran in,

Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herself

As having fail'd in duty to him, shriek'd That she but meant to win him back, fell on him,

Clasp'd, kiss'd him, wail'd: he answer'd, 'Care not thou!

Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well!'

THE PRINCESS;

PROLOGUE.

A MEDLEY.

SIR Walter Vivian all a summer's day Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun Up to the people: thither flock'd at noon His tenants, wife and child, and thither half

The neighbouring borough with their Institute

I was

Of which he was the patron. there From college, visiting the son,—the son A Walter too,-with others of our set, Five others: we were seven at Vivianplace.

And me that morning Walter show'd the house,

Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,

Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay

Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,

Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of

Time;

And on the tables every clime and age

Jumbled together; celts and calumets, Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, The cursed Malayan crease, and battleclubs

From the isles of palm: and higher on the walls,

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer,

His own forefathers' arms and armour hung.

And this' he said 'was Hugh's at
Agincourt;

And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon :

A good knight he ! we keep a chronicle With all about him '-which he brought,

and I

Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights,

Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings

Who laid about them at their wills and died;

And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd

« ElőzőTovább »