Life Immovable Part 11

TO PALLIS[21] FOR HIS "ILIAD"

From cups that are both ours and strange, Enameled, and adorned with leaves Of laurel and of ivy green, We quaff the wine both pure and mixed.

The liquid that within us burns, Or poured in cups about us gleams And bird-like sings, brings us away To the far Isle of dreams. But thou

Enviest not the path of dreams, Nor sharest in our drunken revel; For with our fathers' s.p.a.cious cup,

The strong and simple, thou hast brought Immortal water from the spring Of Homer, thou O traveller!

_1903._

HAIL TO THE RIME

Cyprus's sh.o.r.es have not beheld thee born of foam; A foreign Vulcan forged thee on a diamond anvil With a gold hammer; and the bard who touches thee, Bound with thy magic beauty's charms, remains thy thrall.

The yearning prayers of a lover fondly loved Cannot accomplish what thou canst, strange nightingale!

Thy song wafts me upon the tranquil fields of calm When jackals born of woeful cares within me howl.

Thy might gives even sin a garment beautiful; And thought divine before thee bows in reverence.

Imagination's ship sails with thy help straight on

Where Solomon and Croesus have their treasuries.

To thee I pray! Answer my greeting lovingly, Thou new tenth Muse among the nine of old, O Rime!

_1896._

THE RETURN 1897

(1897 is the year of the Greco-Turkish war which ended disastrously for Greece. See Introduction, page 58.)

_DEDICATION_

_Mother thrice reverend, O widowed saint, Upon thy shattered throne I come to place The crowns of Art, dream-made and dream-engraved.

With war storms desolate, my native land, Trod by the Turk and by strangers scorned thou wert; Even thy child beholding thee in ruins, As if the waters of Oblivion In dark Oblivion's Dale had touched his lips, Left thee; and thou didst writhe like a whole world Engulfed in sounds of woe: Hair-tearings and Breast-beatings, groans of sad despair, night-bats Wandering restlessly, unheeded prayers Of souls condemned, loud thunder peals, fierce glares Of lightnings, and the laughter of the fiends!

But lo, unknown and humble I, with calm Upon my countenance and storm in mind, Far from the panic-stricken market place, Beneath the plane trees' shade, and far away By the blood-tinctured settings of the suns, Unruffled, in another land I travelled, And deep I dug in distant treasure mines.

And with my hand, that knows no rifle's touch, Slowly I hammered on the crowns of art; And if thou findest nowhere on their gleam Thine image painted, or thy blessed name Written, thou knowest still, O motherland, Though in thy woe's abyss they seem unlike, And though a strange and careless glimmer shines On them, they were created out of thee; For thee I made them; and for thee I raised them.

Perhaps, when in the midst of wilderness And ruins thou first openest thine eyes, O hapless One, my humble offerings Will not appear like thy wrath's threats, nor like The joyful trumpetings of thy reveille, Nor like an image of thy pa.s.sion's cross, Nor like thy sorrow's dirge, nor like glad hymns; But like soft songs and trembling lights and fondlings Of lily hands, black birds, and stars unknown.

Thus when, smitten with Charon's knife and sunk In death's dark swoon, a hapless mother feels Life's tide return, she hears again, like first Life-summons, the anxious voice of her fond child, A voice that comforts her and tenderly Tells of a thousand tales of love his fancy Weaves or his memory recalls, and drowns His faintest sigh not to remind his mother Of the unerring blow of Charon's knife.

Mother thrice-reverend, O widowed saint, Upon thy shattered throne I come to place The crowns of Art dream-made and dream-engraved.

Though they will echo not thy sorrow's groans, A child of thine has bound them on thine earth With gold; upon their circles thine own speech Is shown with master tongue; their light is drawn From thy sun's gleaming fountain; seek no more!

Only with harmony sublime and pure, Which, though it rises over time and s.p.a.ce, Turns the world's ears to his native land, The poet is the greatest patriot._

THE TEMPLE

My knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed, O Temple built apart in wilderness For an unseen divinity, a G.o.ddess Who from her being's deep abyss reveals Only a statue wrought by human hand And even covered with a veil opaque.

Methinks I see among thy sculptured columns, Among thy secret treasures and thine altars, Ion, the Delphic priest, who lays aside The snow-white raiment of the sacrifice And takes up the wayfarer's knotty staff.

I am no ministrant, nor have I held The dreadful mystic key, nor have I touched Boldly or timidly the sacred gate That leads to Life's deep-hidden mysteries.

One sinner more, O Temple, in the midst Of sinful mult.i.tudes, I come to worship.

My knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed; I feel the chill of night or of the tomb Creeping upon me slowly, stealthily.

But lo, I struggle to shake off the evil That creeps on me so cold; with longing heart, I drag my bleeding knees beyond thy walls, Out of thy columns--forests stifling me-- Into the sunlight and the moon's soft glimmer.

Away with prayer's burning frankincense!

Away with the gold knife of the sacrifice!

Away with choirs loud-voiced and clad in white, Singing their hymns about the flaming altars!

Abandoning thee, O Temple, I return To the small hut of the first bloom of time.

THE HUT

O humble hut of the first bloom of time, Neither the noisy city's mingled Babel, Nor the most tranquil soul of the great plain, Nor the gold cloud of dust on the wide road, Nor the brook's course that sings like nightingales, Nothing of these is either shown to thee Or speaks before thy bare and flowerless window, O humble hut of the first bloom of time.

Only the neighbor's step now echoes on From the rough pavement built in Turkish times; The black wall's shadow, on the narrow street; And on the lonely ruins lightning-struck Ere they became the glory of a house, The nettles revel l.u.s.tful and unreaped.

Beneath the bare and flowerless window's sill, A nest of greenish black, like a small heart, Hangs tenantless and waits and waits and waits In vain for the return of the first swallow That has gone forth, its first and last of dwellers.

O thirsty eyes that linger magnet-bound On the nest's orphanhood of greenish black!

O ears filled with the terror of the tune That travels to the bare and flowerless window High from thy roof moss-covered with neglect, O humble hut of the first bloom of time!

It is the tune the lone-owl always plays Blowing upon the cursed flute of night Its lingering shrill notes of mournful measure, Herald of woe and prophet of all ill.