The Poetical Works Of Robert Bridges Part 15

Fair was the sight; for now, though full an hour The sun had sunk, she saw the evening light In shifting colour to the zenith tower, And grow more gorgeous ever and more bright.

Bathed in the warm and comfortable glow, The fair delighted queen forgot her woe, And watch'd the unwonted pageant of the night.

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Broad and low down, where late the sun had been A wealth of orange-gold was thickly shed, Fading above into a field of green, Like apples ere they ripen into red; Then to the height a variable hue Of rose and pink and crimson freak'd with blue, And olive-border'd clouds o'er lilac led.

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High in the opposed west the wondering moon All silvery green in flying green was fleec't; And round the blazing South the splendour soon Caught all the heaven, and ran to North and East; And Aphrodite knew the thing was wrought By cunning of Poseidon, and she thought She would go see with whom he kept his feast.

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Swift to her wish came swimming on the waves His lovely ocean nymphs, her guides to be, The Nereids all, who live among the caves And valleys of the deep, Cymodoce, Agave, blue-eyed Hallia and Nesaea, Speio, and Thoe, Glauce and Actaea, Iaira, Melite and Amphinome,

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Apseudes and Nemertes, Calliana.s.sa, Cymothoe, Thaleia, Limnorrhea, Clymene, Ianeira and Iana.s.sa, Doris and Panope and Galatea, Dynamene, Dexamene and Maira, Ferusa, Doto, Proto, Callianeira, Amphithoe, Oreithuia and Amathea.

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And after them sad Melicertes drave His chariot, that with swift unfellied wheel, By his two dolphins drawn along the wave, Flew as they plunged, yet did not dip nor reel, But like a plough that shears the heavy land Stood on the flood, and back on either hand O'erturn'd the briny furrow with its keel.

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Behind came Tritons, that their conches blew, Greenbearded, tail'd like fish, all sleek and stark; And hippocampi tamed, a bristly crew, The browzers of old Proteus' weedy park, Whose chiefer Mermen brought a sh.e.l.l for boat, And balancing its hollow fan afloat, Push'd it to sh.o.r.e and bade the queen embark:

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And then the G.o.ddess stept upon the sh.e.l.l Which took her weight; and others threw a train Of soft silk o'er her, that unfurl'd to swell In sails, at breath of flying Zephyrs twain; And all her way with foam in laughter strewn, With stir of music and of conches blown, Was Aphrodite launch'd upon the main.

APRIL

1

But fairest Psyche still in favour rose, Nor knew the jealous power against her sworn; And more her beauty now surpa.s.s't her foe's, Since 'twas transfigured by the spirit forlorn, That writeth, to the perfecting of grace, Immortal question in a mortal face, The vague desire whereunto man is born.

2

Already in good time her sisters both, Whose honest charms were never famed as hers, With princes of the isle had plighted troth, And gone to rule their foreign courtiers; But she, exalted evermore beyond Their loveliness, made yet no lover fond, And gain'd but number to her worshippers.

3

To joy in others' joy had been her lot, And now that that was gone she wept to see How her transcendent beauty overshot The common aim of all felicity.

For love she sigh'd; and had some peasant rude For true love's sake in simple pa.s.sion woo'd, Then Psyche had not scorn'd his wife to be.

4

For what is Beauty, if it doth not fire The loving answer of an eager soul?

Since 'tis the native food of man's desire, And doth to good our varying world control; Which, when it was not, was for Beauty's sake Desired and made by Love, who still doth make A beauteous path thereon to Beauty's goal.

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Should all men by some hateful venom die, The pity were that o'er the unpeopl'd sphere The sun would still bedeck the evening sky And the unimaginable hues appear, With none to mark the rose and gold and green; That Spring should walk the earth, and nothing seen Of her fresh delicacy year by year.

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And if some beauteous things,--whose heavenly worth And function overpa.s.s our mortal sense,-- Lie waste and unregarded on the earth By reason of our gross intelligence, These are not vain, because in nature's scheme It lives that we shall grow from dream to dream In time to gather an enchantment thence.

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Even as we see the fairest works of men Awhile neglected, and the makers die; But Truth comes weeping to their graves, and then Their fames victoriously mounting high Do battle with the regnant names of eld, To win their seats; as when the G.o.ds rebel'd Against their sires and drave them from the sky.

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But to be praised for beauty and denied The meed of beauty, this was yet unknown: The best and bravest men have ever vied To win the fairest women for their own.

Thus Psyche spake, or reason'd in her mind, Disconsolate; and with self-pity pined, In the deserted halls wandering alone.

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And grieved grew the King to see her woe: And blaming first the G.o.ds for her disease, He purposed to their oracle to go To question how he might their wrath appease, Or, if that might not be, the worst to hear,-- Which is the last poor hope of them that fear.-- So he took his ship upon the northern seas,

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And journeying to the shrine of Delphi went, The temple of Apollo Pythian, Where when the G.o.d he question'd if 'twas meant That Psyche should be wed, and to what man, The tripod shook, and o'er the vaporous well The chanting Pythoness gave oracle, And thus in priestly verse the sentence ran:

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_High on the topmost rock with funeral feast Convey and leave the maid, nor look to find A mortal husband, but a savage beast, The viperous scourge of G.o.ds and humankind; Who shames and vexes all, and as he flies With sword and fire, Zeus trembles in the skies, And groans arise from souls to h.e.l.l consigned._