Classic Poem

Deep in the night I hear, mid the querulous
trilling of crickets, and mid the murmuring
 of rain-swollen streamlets unseen,
 which flow in the shadow serene. . . .

Down in the hidden valley, where wander now
the fleet fire-flies, unseen in their loneliness …
 from hedges far distant or near
 a dog's muffled barking I hear.

Who, passing late there, through streets of solitude,
between the gloomy hedges of box-wood trees,
 awakened that dog in the night,
 with echoing footstep and light?

Parting? or coming? Weeping? He hesitates?
Within his heart are there words shut up in there,
 which knock with the clock's even tone?
 With him is a shadow, alone?

Away! Away! the voice warns him, vigilant,
from out the darkness sounding forth angrily,
 for, through the dense foliage gleams
 the house, that is listening, it seems …

as if in sleep it had its great eyelids closed. . . .
Within, a man is sleeping, in thoughtfulness
 his arm round the sweet wife entwined,
 who lies in soft slumber reclined.

The infant sleeps in the cradle willow-wove,
and the other little ones too are sleeping there.
 On fly-wings their breaths run a race,
 as in darkness each other they chase.

On they go evenly, forward, back again,
with gentle humming; in that far shadow-land
 they're seeking; these souls, all the night,
 are seeking each other till light,

through the unknown by-ways long and meandering
of sleep, until, at the end, they meet again;
 and gay greetings chorus, at day,
 from those who had strayed far away.

“Ye good-for-naughts! Ye walking voices! Oh,
ye dusky grey-backs, like the water snakes!
Be gone from here!” the prison keeper called
sharply. It was a place deserted, wild,
in sacred Athens, at its very heart.
Unsightly, squalid huts lay neath the rocks
of ashen hue, with yellow deeply lined,
and full of openings, growing, here and there,
the verdure of wild thyme and motherwort.
The sun was on the mountains. In the sky
there darkly passed, from time to time, a flight
of fierce, great swallows, that in circles swirled
above the citadel, and loudly screamed
unto the great bronze Goddess. And, below,
a group of children scampered back and forth,
they, too, screaming. And lo! a portal oped,
and from the house of the Eleven the guard,
on the dark threshold, lifted up his voice.

 He spoke: “Is it still holiday with you?
The sacred ship from Delos yesterday
came back; festivities are ended now.
No longer is it time to bind with thread
the scarabs, or to frolic with the fly
of bronze!” And silently the flock withdrew
a little, then called out: “You there, look here!
Why talk to us of scarabs and of flies?
It is an owl!” In truth, there was an owl,
with plumage all ruffed up, in Gryllo's fist,
the son of Gryllo, fashioner of shields.
He was the oldest, but the youngest boy,
Hyllo, son of the potter, Hyllo, found
the bird before him, in a rocky cleft.
In a great crevice of grey rock, beneath
a tuft of clinging vine, Hyllo had seen,
deep in the shade, two glittering coins of gold,
and he drew nearer; but the gold was gone:
and then again he saw them … the two eyes
of a bird, round and staring, in the shade.
A sacred owl of Athens' Goddess gazed
there, imperturbably, at Hyllo, son
of Hyllo, who had seized it by the wings,
with his two hands, and now was carrying it.
And Coccalo came up and snatched the owl
away, and Cottalo took it from him.
Then Gryllo came and captured it anew.
Mid smiles and tears, behind the oldest boy,
the little one went bawling down the road.

 But Gryllo fastened with a noose the foot
of the owl, and made it up and downward bound,
and fly about beneath the summer sun.
Out from the lowly huts ran other youths,
children of Scythian archers, foreign-born.
And mid them all, as in a waking dream,
the owl would ever ope and close its eyes,
round as two spheres, made for the sacred night.
And loud the chorus chanted: “Dance or die!”

 And, meanwhile, in the prison house there was
a snub-nosed, sylvan Pan, a tranquil, old
Silenus, with keen face and great bull-eyes.
Sweetly he spoke and, seated at his feet,
there was a lovely youth, with flowing locks.
And many others gathered round about:
men, all silent, and in the heart of each
there was a child that feared the dark. On these
the good Silenus wrought his magic power.
“Ye see not what I am. I am,” said he,
“the part of me that flees the sight of men,
and is invisible. Now, if this looks,
it trembles, as if drunk; but it's not that,
it's not this I, that trembles; what it sees
is that which trembles, which is visible,
which has no power to last unchanged, which dies.
I am the soul of me, which lives the more,
the more it lives with self, far from the world,
within the sacred shadow realm of sense.
And if, forever free, to immortal night
it doth depart, there, where it doth exist
with all of that which never vacillates,
will it, then, die? Will it no more have sight?”
“It sees,” some one replied, “It will not die.”

 The music-making Pan was still, alone
in the close presence of his thought unseen.
The lovely youth, with head thrown backward now,
his long locks on his shoulders falling free,
was drinking in the echo of his words.
And lo! through the upper window entered in
a chant of voices shrill: “Dance, then, or die!”

 And then the guardian of the gloomy gate
drove out the noisy lads into the sun,
beyond the shadow of the roofs and rock.
But in the sun the owl stretched up and down
on Gryllo's fist, it made its feathers rough,
opened and closed its eyes, and louder laughed
the infants. Whence, the keeper: “Gryllo's son,
thou Gryllo, wiser than the rest, give heed!
Thou knowest: sacred is the bird thou hast
unto our Goddess, to whom thou, going nude
throughout the city, with thy comrades nude,
dost sing the hymn. Our Goddess knows all things,
because she has the owl's grey eyes, and sees
with them through the obscurity of heaven.”
“No, it sees not, I tell you,” Hyllo said,
“nor will it see. It shuts its round, great eyes
against the sun.” “Thou prattling sparrow, hush!”
the keeper said. “Thou, Gryllo, art a man,
I see. I knew thy father, maker skilled
of shields. As fig to fig, ye are alike.
Make thou the chattering turtle-doves keep still!
One that is dying is within my house.”
“Who? This evening?” “At setting of the sun.”
“And why?” “The ship from Delos has come back.
Besides, he dreamed: one clothed in white declared:
on the third day, O man, thou shalt reach land!
The hemlock he will drink within this day.
Delay not, Gryllo, let him die in peace!”

 A long, long time the youths were silent then,
all thinking of the man who thus by sea
was going back to his home. And Gryllo said:
“It's the one who went barefoot, and walked the air,
and called the sun a stone, and said the moon
was earth. . . .” And silently they all turned back
and near the prison stood, as if to wait.
The owl, held by the loosened cord, flew forth
to a wild olive branch, that jutted out
just there, above the children's curly heads.
It courtesied and ruffed its plumes, stretched up
and down, blind from the sunset's great, rose light.
And from the tiles a sparrow saw, and flew
down to the owl, ne'er seen before; and then
the other sparrows to the clamor came,
and, by the tumult from their slumber roused,
the swallows overflowed from out their nests;
and from a silent, shady, sacred grove
the black-cap and the nightingale came out.
Great were the uproar and the chirpings soft,
but these the children did not hear, for they
were listening to a voice they heard within
of one who was returning to his land
invisible, and spoke in quietude
to another bark, that crossed upon the sea.

 And when the sound of voices from within
had ceased, one of the children said: “Climb you,
Hyllo, up on my shoulder, and from there
you tell us what you see!” The boy climbed up,
and through the upper window stole a glance.
“I see,” “Oh, Hyllo, what see you?” “An old
Silenus kindly.” “What says he?” “He says
he's going away, and the one that will be dead,
and they will bury, that will not be he.”
Meanwhile the sun again was drawing off
its rays from Athens' sacred temples white.
Only the point gleamed brightly of the spear
held by the great bronze Goddess in her hand.
This sparkled once, and then no more was seen;
and beyond Mt. Citero the sun went down,
wide-rayed. “What see you, Hyllo?” “Now he drinks.”
“The hemlock.” “The others weep. One screens his head
under his garment. Loud one calls.” “And says?”
“He says, there should be silence deep, as when
they sprinkle at the altar salt and grain.”

 Then every one was still, so that was heard
the man's bare footstep pacing back and forth,
and then, not even that footstep was discerned.
“Hyllo, what see you now?” “He's on the couch.
A man now feels one foot. He's covered himself.
He's dying, now.” “Then he'll not go away?”
“Now he throws off the cover, and he says:
A cock unto the God that heals our ills!”
“What? Is the hemlock, then, a medicine?”
“And now they close his mouth, and now, his eyes.”
“He does not go? He still is here?” “Yes, dead.”

 And, whispering, the children stood along
beside the shadowy rock, when lo! the door
was opened, and, with sobs and tears, came forth
an agèd one, a youth, and others, sad
and softly mourning. Then from Gryllo's hand
unheeding, with light pull, the cord slipped out;
the sacred bird of night soared up on high
with silent flight, as though a shadow passed.
The dead man's friends, the children waiting there,
heard, shrilly sounding from above the roof,
a piercing cry: Tu whit! Tu whoo! … From higher,
Tu whit! Tu whoo! From higher still, Tu whit!
Tu whoo! … From the azure sky, where blazed the stars.
And some one said, who heard the auspicious cry
of the owl: “That means that fortune will be kind!”