Cydilla:
Delphis, Delphis, Good Damon had been making me so happy By telling ...
Delphis:
How he watched me near the zenith?
Three years back That dream pounced on me and began to soar; Having been sick, my heart had found new lies; The only thoughts I then had ears for were Healthy, virtuous, sweet; Jaded town-wastrel, A country setting was the sole could take me Three years back.
Damon might have guessed From such a dizzy height What fall was coming.
Cydilla:
Ah my boy, my boy!
Damon:
Sit down, be patient, let us hear and aid;-- Has aught befallen Amyntas?
Delphis:
Would he were dead!
Would that I had been brute enough to slay him!-- Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head, His every smile and word As we sat by our fire, stung my fool"s heart.-- How we laughed to see him curtsey, Fidget strings about his waist,-- Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys" hem Drawing it tight about his neck, "just like Our Baucis." Could not sleep For thinking of the life they lead in towns; He said so: when, at last, He sighed from dreamland, thoughts I had been day-long brooding Broke into vision.
A child, a girl, Beautiful, nay more than others beautiful, Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, You know what she will be; At six years old or seven her life is round her; A company, all ages, old men, young men, Whose vices she must prey on.
And the bent crone she will be is there too, Patting her head and chuckling prophecies.-- O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought Of will, of virtue-- Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, Of opportunities not only but events;-- The unalterable past Is full of thy contrivance, Aphrodite, G.o.ddess of ruin!
No girl; nay, nay, Amyntas is young, Is gay, Has beauty and health--and yet In his sleep I have seen him smile And known that his dream was vile; Those eyes which brimmed over with glee Till my life flowed as fresh as the sea-- Those eyes, gloved each in a warm live lid, May be glad that their visions are hid.
I taught myself to rhyme; the trick will cling.
Ah, Damon, day-lit vision is more dread Than those which suddenly replace the dark!
When the dawn filtered through our tent of boughs I saw him closely wrapped in his grey cloak, His head upon a pile of caked thin leaves Whose life had dried up full two years ago.
Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew As friable as that pale ashen fritter; It had more body than reason dare expect From that so beautiful creature"s best intent.
He waking found me no more there; and wanders Through aetna"s woods to-day Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, Till he shall strike a road shall lead him home; Yet all his life must be spent as he spends This day in whistling, wondering, singing, chatting, In the great wood, vacant and amiable.
Damon:
Can it be possible that thou desertest Thy love, thy ward, the work of three long years, Because chance, on an April holiday Has filled this boy"s talk with another man, And wonder at another way of life?
Worse than a woman"s is such jealousy; The lad must live!
Delphis:
Live, live! to be sure, he must live!
I have lived, am a fool for my pains!
And yet, and yet, This heart has ached to play the G.o.d for him:-- Mine eyes for his had sifted visible things; Speech had been filtered ere it reached his ear; Not in the world should he have lived, but breathed Humanity"s distilled quintessences; The indiscriminate mult.i.tude sorted should yield him Acquaintance and friend discerned, chosen by me:-- By me, who failed, wrecked my youth"s prime, and dragged More wonderful than his gifts in the mire!
Damon:
Yet if experience could not teach and save Others from ignorance, why, towns would be Ruins, and civil men like outlaws thieve, Stab, riot, ere two generations pa.s.sed.
Delphis:
Where is the Athens that Pericles loved?
Where are the youths that were Socrates" friends?
There was a town where all learnt What the wisest had taught!
Why had crude Sparta such treasonous force?
Could Philip of Macedon Breed a true Greek of his son?
What honour to conquer a world Where Alcibiades failed, Lead half-drilled highland hordes Whose l.u.s.t would inherit the wise?
There is nothing art"s industry shaped But their idleness praising it mocked.
Thus Fate re-a.s.sumed her command And laughed at experienced law.
What ails man to love with such pains?
Why toil to create in the mind Of those who shall close in his grave The best that he is and has hoped?
The longer permission he has, The n.o.bler the structure so raised, The greater its downfall. Fools, fools, Where is a town such as Pericles ruled?
Where youths to replace those whom Socrates loved?
Wise Damon, thou art silent;--Mother, thou Hast only arms to cling about thy son.-- Who can descry the purpose of a G.o.d With eyes wide-open? shut them, every fool Can conjure up a world arriving somewhere, Resulting in what he may call perfection.
Evil must soon or late succeed to good.
There well may once have been a golden age: Why should we treat it as a poet"s tale?
Yet, in those hills that hung o"er Arcady, Some roving inebriate Daimon Begat him fair children On nymphs of the vineyard, On nymphs of the rock:-- And in the heart of the forest Lay bound in white arms, In action creative a father Without a thought for his child:-- A purposeless G.o.d, The forbear of men To corrupt, ape, inherit and spoil That fine race beforehand with doom!
No, Damon, what"s an answer worth to one Whose mind has been flung open?
Only last night, The gates of my spirit gave entrance Unto the great light; And I saw how virtue seduceth, Not ended today or tomorrow Like the pa.s.sion for love, Like the pa.s.sion for life-- But perennial pain And age-long effort.
Dead deeds are the teeth that shine In the mouth that repeateth praise, That spurs men to do high things Since their fathers did higher before-- To give more than they hope to receive, To slave and to die in a secular cause!
The mouth that smiles over-praise Eats out the heart of each fool To feed the great dream of a race.
Yet wearied peoples each in turn awake From virtue, as a man from his brief love, And, roughly shaken, face the useless truth; No answer to brute fact has e"er been found.
Slaves of your slaves, caged in your furnished rooms, Ushered to meals when reft of appet.i.te-- Though hungry, bound to wait a stated hour-- Your dearest contemplation broken off By the appointed summons to your bath; Racked with more thought for those whom you may flog Than for those dear; obsessed by your possessions With a dull round of stale anxieties;-- Soon maintenance grows the extreme reach of hope For those held in respect, as in a vice, By citizens of whom they are the pick.
Of men the least bond is the roving seaman Who hires himself to merchantman or pirate For single voyages, stays where he may please, Lives his purse empty in a dozen ports, And ne"er obeys the ghost of what once was!
His laugh chimes readily; his kiss, no symbol Of aught to come, but cordial, eager, hot, Leaves his tomorrow free. With him for comrade Each day shall be enough, and what is good Enjoyed, and what is evil borne or cursed.
I go, because I will not have a home, Or here prefer to there, or near to far.
I go, because I will not have a friend Lay claim upon my leisure this day week.
I will be melted by each smile that takes me; What though a hundred lips should meet with mine!
A vagabond I shall be as the moon is.
The sun, the waves, the winds, all birds, all beasts, Are ever on the move, and take what comes; They are not parasites like plants and men Rooted in that which fed them yesterday.
Not even Memory shall follow Delphis, For I will yield to all impulse save hers, Therein alone subject to prescient rigour; Lest she should lure me back among the dying-- Pilfer the present for the beggar past.
Free minds must bargain with each greedy moment And seize the most that lies to hand at once.
Ye are too old to understand my words; I yet have youth enough, and can escape From that which sucks each individual man Into the common dream.
Cydilla:
Stay, Delphis, hear what Damon has to say!