Classic Poem

The moist and quiet morn was scarcely breaking,
When Ariadne in her bower was waking;
Her eyelids still were closing, and she heard
But indistinctly yet a little bird,
That in the leaves o'erhead, waiting the sun,
Seemed answering another distant one
She waked, but stirred not, only just to please
Her pillow-nestling cheek; while the full seas,
The birds, the leaves, the lulling love o'ernight,
The happy thought of the returning light,
The sweet, self-willed content, conspired to keep
Her senses lingering in the feel of sleep;
And with a little smile she seemed to say,
‘I know my love is near me, and 'tis day.’

 At length, not feeling the accustomed arm,
That from all sense of fancied want and harm
Used to enclose her, when she turned that way,
She stretched her hand to feel where Theseus lay,
Thinking to wake his mouth into a kiss;
At which he'd turn, and with those eyes of his
Ask pardon of his love for having lain amiss.

 But how? Not there? She starts with a small cry,
And feels the empty space, and runs her eye
O'er all the bower, and stretches from the bed
One hasty foot, and listens with wild head.
No sight—no voice: she tries to smile, heart-sick,
And murmurs, ‘Oh, 'tis but some hiding trick;
He sees me through the boughs:’ and so she rose,
And, like a wood-nymph, through the glimmering goes,
And for a while delays to call his name,
Pretending she should spoil his amorous game;
But stops at last, her throat full-pulsed with fears,
And calls convulsively with bursting tears;
Then calls again; and then in the open air
Rushes, and fiercely calls. He is not there .

 Suddenly of his bark she thinks, that lay
On t'other side the hill, down in the bay;
And off before the rising wind she flies,
And mounts the hill, and stops, and strains her eyes;
And there she sees, but not within the bay,
The faithless bark, far off, leaning away,
And now with gleaming sail, and now with dim,
Hastening to slip o'er the horizon's brim
'Tis gone; and as a dead thing, down falls she,
In the great eye of morn, then breaking quietly.

 Some say that Theseus took this selfish flight
From common causes—a cloyed appetite;
Others, that having brought her sister there
As well, he turned his easy love to her;
And others, who are sure to quote Heaven's orders
For great men's crimes, though not for small disorders,
Pretend that Bacchus in the true old way,
A dream, advised him sternly not to stay,
But go and cut up nations limb by limb,
And leave the lady and the bower to him.

 One thing looks certain,—that the chief that day
Was not alone a skulking runaway,
But left the woman that believed his smile
To all the horrors of a desert isle,
Perhaps to starve, perhaps be torn asunder
Of beasts, or madden with despair and wonder.

 And almost mad she was, when now the hour
Of noon compelled her back to the green bower,
After recovering her first misery,
And wandering long beside the flat far sea.
For not a face she saw of human thing,
Nor house, nor hut, nor any ship's white wing,
Nor any sign of life in that strange land,
Except some fearful footsteps on the sand,
Which seemed a beast's; and yet on every side
Were vines; some evidently pruned and tied,
Some spread like rural carpets towards the sea,
Of green, and red, and some from tree to tree;
And once, in a luxurious spot of ground,
Shut in with leafy little hills, she found
A flagon, so divine of workmanship,
Was never yet the like at human lip.

 But even the wondrous beauty every where
Intense and silent, filled her heart with fear:
And dim of brain, and trembling, she sought out
Her former happy bower; then looked about,
And going inward to the leafy bed,
Lay down, and burst into soft tears, and said,
‘Oh, Theseus, Theseus!’ then awhile she stopped,
And turned, and in her hand her poor face dropped,
Shaking her head, and cried, ‘How could you go,
And leave me here to die, that loved you so!
I would not have left you, even for mirth,
Not in the best and safest place on earth;
Nor, had you been never so false a one,
Denied you this poor breast to lean upon;
Much less for loving too confidingly;
And yet, for nothing worse, have you left me;
Left me—left Ariadne, sleeping too
Fast by your side; and yet for you, for you,
She left her father, country, home, and all,
To serve you still, and smile at every call;
To be your wife, Theseus; perhaps to see
Some day—great gods!—a dear one on my knee;
And now she lies, the daughter of a king,
Bequeathed to death, while yet a living thing;
Bequeathed to death through every sharp distress,
Homeless, and fatherless, and husbandless;
And cannot have even a single eye
To look on her, while thus she lays her down to die.’

 Thus for awhile the desolate beauty kept
Her face averted, and to fulness wept;
Till ceasing with a hushed despair, she raised
Her eyes, and leaning up, silently gazed
Upon the crown, which from her bashful brow
She had hung up, o'ernight, upon a bough.
She took it down, and placed it by her side,
And leaning on her hand, lay watching it, full-eyed.

 It was a hoop of sapphire, heavenly bright,
Fretted with golden stars that gave a light:
One, in the middle of the front, surpassed
The rest in size, and a red lustre cast.
Upon their points they stood, and seemed to thrill
With inward fire, and their own sparkling will,
Like tip-toe stars in heaven, that issue forth
O'er streaks of evening cloud in the clear north
Jove, when across the frightening seas he bore
Her father's mother from the flowery shore,
Europa,—and had gained her glad caresses,
Placed this Vulcanian work upon her tresses.
Minos, one day, delighted with her heir
In sex and sweetness, gave it her to wear;
And 'twas this crown, that with its magic rays,
Shooting about her head, and anxious gaze,
Helped Theseus when he pierced the dreadful maze.

 Meantime, the sun was stepping down halfway
Betwixt the noon and the decline of day,
And shot a lustrous, but a bearable smile,
Over the autumnal flush of that still isle.
The patient beauty, dying as she thought,
Lay watching her bright crown, by Vulcan wrought,
And wondering that the gods to such a lot
Could leave her, perhaps hoping they might not,
When suddenly she saw (undoubted sign
That one of them was near) the work divine
Start into double ferment, every star;
And presently she heard a noise from far
Of music, such as when a pomp rejoices,
And, as she thought, the sound of shouting voices.

 She rose, and going to a little mound
Among the trees, looked through them far and round:
Nothing was there; but still she heard the noise,
Which seemed fast coming, like a throng of joys:
And now she heard the sound of cymbals clashed;
And now, as if—cups were together dashed;
And timbrels then, and pipes, which fine crisp fingers
Seemed to be dancing on; and laughing singers.

 She looked and looked:—it was no common sound,
Much less the noise of war on that lone ground;
And pirates the new comers could not be:
The fervid crown announced a deity.
‘Bacchus!’ she cried:—the sound, the jovial shout,
The tumbling vines proclaimed him all about;
And Bacchus 'twas indeed, coming awhile
To feast in Naxos, his beloved isle.

 Suddenly from a wood his dancers rush,
Leaping like wines that from the bottle gush;
Bounding they come, and twirl, and thrust on high
Their thyrsuses, as they would rouse the sky;
And hurry here and there, in loosened bands,
And trill above their heads their cymballed hands:
Some, brawny males, that almost show from far
Their forceful arms, cloudy and muscular;
Some, smoother females, who have nevertheless
Strong limbs, and hands, to fling with and to press;
And shapes, which they can bend with heavenward glare,
And tortuous wrists, and backward streaming hair
A troop of goat-foot shapes came trampling after,
That seemed, with tickling, stung to frisks and laughter;
Butting and mumming, they jumped here and there
With backward knees, and a strange tottering air;
And some eat grapes; some drank; and others chaced
The women, or with leering heat embraced;
And some with reeds their smoothened lips beneath,
Jerked up and down them with a flickering breath.
In middle of the rout Silenus rode
Upon a stumbling ass,—a drunken load;
And as they held him, lolled and slipped about,
And giggled with close chin, and half peered out
From his fat eyes, and tried a feeble shout.

 A finer train succeeded, quieter,
But cheerful still, and with a laughing stir;
A few of them were Naiads from the brooks,
Known by their lilied tresses, and fair looks;
The rest were sylvans, their dark brows arrayed
In ivy crowns of sunny light and shade;
Some youths with double flutes, intently going;
Some, dimpled girls, over their shoulders showing
Blithe oval cheeks, hung short with clustering looks,
And touching tambourins with trills and knocks;
And some of both, came paired like paramours,
Bearing a yoke enwreathed with grapes and flowers,
And held each other's waist with light embraces,
And tenderly, looked in each other's faces:
The rest, a bright-eyed number, came along,
Dancing in linked windings with a song;
Now looking on one side, and now behind,
And now with forward breath, their hair against the wind.

 Last, with the exception of some more of these
Who danced behind him, came in his fine ease
The god himself. Two shiny leopards drew him,
And others coursed about, or leaped up to him,
Trying to win a look from him: but he,
Reclining in his car of ivory,
Like a ripe world's divinest human flower,
Sat looking forward to the lady's bower
Curls trembled in his neck; a crimson vest
Slung by two clasps, reached half way up his breast.
His fruity cheek was rounded off, and bent
Just near the dimpled chin; his eye intent,
And liquid dark; and from his ivy crown,
Mixed with his locks, some glancing grapes hung down.
Upon one arm he leaned, and from his hair
Short sunny beams broke sharply here and there;
His dark head glowing o'er his shoulders fair.

 And now had the forlorn and lovely one
Stood forth, and waited meekly in the sun,
To pay due reverence to the coming god.
Right towards the spot they strangely danced and trod;
And shrinking as she stood, she found them come
Reeling beside her with a fearful hum,
Grinning and eager; some with shouldered spears,
And some who shook their cymbals by her ears,
And some that ramped on hoofs, and some fierce-haired,
And some with pipings, over which they glared.
But Bacchus, who beheld their rough delight,
Lifting his voice, and shooting it with might,
It burst among them, like a terrible sound
Of a huge trumpet gaping from the ground;
And off they flew careering with a yell,
Drooping and gone, as if their spirits fell.

 The gentle mourner shook. But now at hand
Came the benigner pleasures of that band,
Who passing by with many bending graces,
Duteous and blithe, and joy-announcing faces,
Took up their stand alcof upon the sward,
In a large bend; still keeping their regard
Towards the green bower, and the fair shape outside:
The looser rout meantime, scarcely descried,
Were in the uplands, scattered here and there,
Like goats, that through the scented summer air
Stray off from the love-making shepherds' care.

 Bacchus!—a sort of thrill seemed to come out
Of his mere presence, striking round about
As when a stone in some clear stream is cast;
So ruffled it with sweetness as it passed.
The beauty (touched already with a strange
Half self-resented feeling of blest change;
And yet she had not lightly changed, but he
Who left her to this chance of sympathy,
And 'twas a god who came to love her now)
Crossed her mild arms, and stooped her bashful brow,
And would have knelt; but the young gladsome power
Leaped from his car, like a frank paramour,
And lightly took her waist, and on her fair
Uplifted forehead, 'twixt the clustered hair,
Gave first a look, and then a kiss divine,
And said, ‘Be happy, Ariadne mine.’

 She wept against him. He continued soon:
‘Do you remember on a vintage noon,
When listening to the songs, you thought you saw
A shape and face, such as you loved to draw,
Look at you through the leaves of your green bower?’
She raised her head, and cried, ‘I do! Oh power,
That lettest on dark souls the light of day!
And is it thou that takest my grief away?
And was it thou, whose looks of happy worth
I would have realized on this wrong earth,
And for one feature of resemblance, thought
To find all joy in him who set my hopes at nought?

 Already had the fair felt blithe and new;
But now she thought she might appear so too;
And when the god proclaimed her for his bride,
She sparkled towards him with a grateful pride;
And with an arm about each other thrown,
She looking up, and he divinely down,
They stepped into the car, to meet the hour
Of bridal star-light in the deity's bower;
At which the nymphs and sylvans round about
Sent up so light, and yet so lofty a shout,
That the hills missed it, and there seemed to be
A noise beyond, that rushed into the sea.

 Then did that finer train resume their road
With a new song, and looks that backward glowed;
Scattering young flowers, which as they fell took root,
And made a radiant path for after foot.
And when they reached the bower (which was a thing
To make old Hesperus doubt his gardening)
They served up cream, and taxed the wealthy bees,
And gathered easily from off the trees
The swollen fruits, and pressed the happy wine,
Unvexed by fire, out of the life-red vine;
And heaped with salads, and with snowy cake,
And all kind relishes which sunbeams make,
The lass-perfected board of the blithe god.
Then in return, he with his ivy rod
Pierced in two places the moist inward earth,
From which there leaped, as if in very mirth,
Struggles of wine and milk, that streamed away,
And furnished rills, by which the feasters lay.

 And down came frank Apollo, and danced there,
To his own lute; and with him danced his hair
In sunny locks; and all the feasters rose
And trod their measures with a blithe repose;
And Venus slipped from out the ether soon,
Called by the touching of a bridal tune,
And wound among them sweetly, all their faces
Brightening as each one met her; and the Graces
Danced after her, threading a dance of three,
With interchange of kind hands amiably;
And Mercury, scarcely on the ground, was there;
And red-lipped Hebe, with her flourishing hair;
And Hymen with his torch, who strayed about,
Like a bright woodland vapour, in and out:
And buxom Ceres with her sharp wheat crown;
And Lusus, telling, as he floated down,
His laughter-waking wit; and the fresh Hours;
And Zephyr gliding with his lap of flowers;
And all the sweet and earnest-foreheaded Nine.
And so the joyous throng in many a line
Divided, sweetly moving; every set
In turn by Bacchus and his lady met,
Who, with his hand against her gentle waist,
Was almost lifted in the dance, and flew on rosy-faced.

 But when the twilight came, as if with shade
For lovers, and a natural quiet made,
The smiling guests departed, and shot back
To dark blue heaven, each in a golden track:
The nymphs and sylvans with their loves withdrew
To vine-encrusted bowers; the ruder crew
Were yet remaining in the distant hills;
And only the moist whispers of the rills
Were heard, still hastening through the trembling grass.
Bacchus took in his arms his bridal lass,
And gave and shared as much more happiness
Than Theseus, as a noble spirit's caress,
Full of sincerity, and mind, and heart,
Out-relishes mere fire and self-embittering art.

 Yet I must not forget, that just before
The guests withdrew, and now its use was o'er,
The grateful god took off from his love's hair
Her fervid crown; and with a leap i' the air,
As when a quoiter springs to his firm eye,
Whirled it in buzzing swiftness to the sky.
Starry already, and with heat within,
It fired as it flew up with that fierce spin,
And opening into grandeur, round and even,
Shook its immortal sparkles out of heaven.

 These, when they issue from the unclouded seas
Preside o'er all sweet things; all luxuries
That come from odorous gardens; all the bowers
That lovers sit in, and the princely flowers
Attired the brightest; all the cordial graces
Waiting on kind intentions and frank faces;
Nay, even the true and better taste in dress,
The easy wear of inward gracefulness.
Beneath this star, this star, where'er she be,
Sits the accomplished female womanly:
Part of its light is round about her hair;
And should her gentle cheek be wet with care,
The tears shall be kissed off, as Ariadne's were.