Classic Poem

BOOK III. — OLYMPUS.

But while I stood
Expectant, lo! a fair pale form drew near
With front severe, and wide blue eyes which bore
Mild wisdom in their gaze. Clear purity
Shone from her — not the young-eyed innocence
Of her whom first I saw, but that which comes
From wider knowledge, which restrains the tide
Of passionate youth, and leads the musing soul
By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knew
My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen,
Who once within her shining Parthenon
Beheld the sages kneel.
She with clear voice
And coldly sweet, yet with a softness too,
Such as befits a virgin:
" She doth right
To boast her sway, my sister, seeing indeed
That all things are as by a double law,
And from a double root the tree of Life
Springs up to the face of heaven. Body and Soul,
Matter and Spirit, lower joys of Sense
And higher joys of Thought, I know that both
Build up the shrine of Being. The brute sense
Leaves man a brute; but, winged with soaring thought,
Mounts to high heaven. The unembodied spirit,
Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense,
Shows impotent. And yet I know there is,
Far off, but not too far for mortal reach,
A calmer height, where, nearer to the stars,
Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt gaze,
A large-eyed maiden in a robe of white,
Who brings the light of Knowledge down, and draws
To her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold,
Which spans from earth to heaven.
For what were life,
If things of sense were all, for those large souls
And high, whom grudging Nature has shut fast
Within unlovely forms, or from whose life
The circuit of the rapid gliding years
Steals the brief gift of beauty? Shall men hold
With idle singers, all the treasure of hope
Is lost with youth — swift-fleeting, treacherous youth,
Which fades and flies before the ripening brain
Crowns life with Wisdom's crown? Nay, even in youth,
Is it not more to tread the difficult heights
Alone — the cold free heights — and mark the vale
Lie breathless in the glare, or hidden and blurred
By cloud and storm; or pestilence and war
Creep on with blood and death; while the soul dwells
Apart upon the peaks, outfronts the sun
As the eagle does, or takes the coming dawn
While all the vale is dark, and knows the springs
Of tiny rivulets hurrying from the snows,
Which soon shall swell to vast resistless floods,
And feed the Oceans which divide the World?

Oh, ecstasy! oh, wonder! oh, delight!
Which neither the slow-withering wear of Time,
That takes all else — the smooth and rounded cheek
Of youth; the lightsome step; the warm young heart
Which beats for love or friend; the treasure of hope
Immeasurable; the quick-coursing blood
Which makes it joy to be, — ay, takes them all
Or makes them naught — nor yet satiety
Born of too full possession, takes or mars!
Oh, fair delight of learning! which grows great
And stronger and more keen, for slower limbs,
And dimmer eyes and loneliness, and loss
Of lower good — wealth, friendship, ay, and Love —
When the swift soul, turning its weary gaze
From the old vanished joys, projects itself
Into the void and floats in empty space,
Striving to reach the mystic source of Things,
The secrets of the earth and sea and air,
The Law that binds the process of the suns,
The awful depths of Mind and Thought; the prime
Unfathomable mystery of God!

Is there, then, any who holds my worship cold
And lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light which cheers
The waning life! Love thou thy love, brave youth!
Cleave to thy love, fair maid! it is the Law
Which dominates the world, that bids ye use
Your nature; but, when now the fuller tide
Slackens a little, turn your calmer eyes
To the fair page of Knowledge. It is power
I give, and power is precious. It is strength
To live four-square, careless of outward shows,
And self-sufficing. It is clearer sight
To know the rule of life, the Eternal scheme;
And, knowing it, to do and not to err,
And, doing, to be blest "
The calm voice soared
Higher and higher to the close; the cold
Clear accents, fired as by a hidden fire,
Glowed into life and tenderness, and throbbed
As with some spiritual ecstasy
Sweeter than that of Love.
But as they died,
I heard an ampler voice; and looking, marked
A fair and gracious form. She seemed a Queen
Who ruled o'er gods and men; the majesty
Of perfect womanhood. No opening bud
Of beauty, but the full consummate flower
Was hers; and from her mild large eyes looked forth
Gentle command, and motherhood, and home,
And pure affection. Awe and reverence
O'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had looked
On sovereign Here, mother of the gods.

She, with clear, rounded utterance, sweet and calm:
" I know the charm of stainless Innocence:
I know Love's fruit is good and fair to see
And taste, if any gain it, and I know
How brief Youth's Passion-tide, which when it ebbs
Leaves Life athirst for Knowledge, and I know
How fair the realm of Mind, where the keen soul
Yearning to rise, wings its impetuous way
Beyond the bounds of Thought; and yet there is
A higher bliss than theirs, which best befits
A mortal life, compact of Body and Soul,
And therefore double-natured — a calm path
Which lies before the feet, thro' common ways
And undistinguished crowds of toiling men,
And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming smooth,
And yet, tho' level, finds a worthier crown.

For Knowledge is a steep which few may climb,
While Duty is a path which all may tread.
And if the goal of Life and Thought be this,
How best to speed the mighty scheme, which still
Fares onward day by day — the Life of the World,
Which is the sum of petty lives, that wane
And die so this may live — how then shall each
Of that great multitude of faithful souls
Who walk not on the heights, fulfil himself,
But by the duteous Life which looks not forth
Beyond its narrow sphere, and finds its work,
And works it out; content, this done, to fall
And perish, if Fate will, so the great Scheme
Goes onward?
Wherefore am I Queen in Heaven
And Earth, whose realm is Duty, bearing rule
More constant and more wide than those whose words
Thou heardest last. Mine are the striving souls
Of fathers plodding day by day obscure
And unrewarded, save of their own hearts,
Mid wranglings of the Forum or the mart;
Who long for joys of Thought, and yet must toil
Unmurmuring thro' dull lives from youth to age;
Who haply might have worn instead the crown
Of Honour and of Fame: mine the fair mothers
Who, for the love of children and of home,
Tho' passion dies, expend their careful years
In loving labour sweetened by the sense
Of Duty: mine the statesman who toils on
Thro' vigilant nights and days, guiding his State,
Yet finds no gratitude; and those white souls
Who give themselves for others all their years
In trivial tasks of Pity. The fine growths
Of Man and Time are mine, and spend themselves
For me and for the mystical End which lies
Beyond their gaze and mine, and yet is good,
Tho' hidden from men and gods.
For as the flower
Of the tiger-lily gay with varied hues
Is for a day, then fades and leaves behind
Fairness nor fruit, while the green tiny tuft
Swells to the purple of the clustering grape
Or golden waves of wheat; so lives of men
Which show most splendid, fade and are deceased
And leave no trace; while those, unmarked, unseen,
Which no man recks of, rear the stately tree
Of Knowledge, not for itself sought out, but found
In the dusty ways of life — a fairer growth
Than springs in cloistered shades; and from the sum
Of Duty, blooms sweeter and more divine
The fair ideal of the Race, than crowns
The glittering gains of Learning
Life, full life,
Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from homely earth,
Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm years
Bearing its load of healthful energies;
Stretching its arms on all sides; fed with dews
Of cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care,
And rain of useful tears; warmed by the sun
Of calm affection, till it breathes itself
In perfume to the heavens — this is the prize
I hold most dear, more precious than the fruit
Of Knowledge or of Love. "
The goddess ceased
As dies some gracious harmony, the child
Of wedded themes which single and alone
Were discords, but united breathe a sound
Sweet as the sounds of heaven.

And then stood forth
The last of the gods I saw, the first in place
And dignity and beauty, the young god
Who grows not old, the Light of Heaven and Earth,
The Worker from afar, who darts the fire
Of inspiration on the bard and bathes
The world in hues of heaven — the golden link
Between High God and Man.
With a sweet voice
Whose every note was perfect melody —
The melody has fled, the words remain —
Apollo sang:
" I know how fair the face
Of Purity; I know the treasure of Strength;
I know the charm of Love, the calmer grace
Of Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent lives:
And yet there is a loftier height than these.

There is a Height higher than mortal thought;
There is a Love warmer than mortal love;
There is a Life which, taking not its hues
From Earth or earthly things, grows white and pure
And higher than the petty cares of men,
And is a blessed life and glorified.

Oh, fair young souls, strain upward, upward still,
Even to the heavenly source of Purity!
Brave hearts, bear on and suffer! Strike for right,
Strong arms, and hew down wrong! The world hath need
Of all of you — the sensual, wrongful world!

Hath need of you, and of thee too, fair Love,
Oh, lovers, cling together! the old world
Is full of Hate. Sweeten it; draw in one
Two separate chords of Life; and from the bond
Of twin souls lost in Harmony create
A Fair God dwelling with you — Love, the Lord!

Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon the stars;
Sow yourselves on the wandering winds of space;
Watch patient all your days, if your eyes take
Some dim, cold ray of Knowledge. The dull world
Hath need of you — the purblind, slothful world!

Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow round
Of Duty; live, expend yourselves, and make
The orb of Being wheel on steadfastly
Upon its path — the Lord of Life alone
Knows to what goal of Good; work on, live on:
And yet there is a higher work than yours.

To have looked upon the face of the Unknown
And Perfect Beauty. To have heard the voice
Of Godhead in the winds and in the seas
To have known Him in the circling of the suns,
And in the changeful fates and lives of men.

To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cup
Filled with a precious essence, till the hand
On marble or on canvas falling, leaves
Celestial traces, or from reed or string
Draws out faint echoes of the voice Divine
That bring God nearer to a faithless world.

Or, higher still and fairer and more blest,
To be His seer, His prophet; to be the voice
Of the Ineffable Word; to be the glass
Of the Creative Light, and bring them down
To bless the earth, set in a shrine of Song.

For Knowledge is a barren tree and bare,
Bereft of God, and Duty but a word,
And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, Desire,
And Purity a folly; and the Soul,
Which brings down God to Man, the Light to the world;
He is the Maker, and is blest, is blest! "

He ended, and I felt my soul grow faint
With too much sweetness.
In a mist of grace
They faded, that bright company, and seemed
To melt into each other and shape themselves
Into new forms, and those fair goddesses
Blent in a perfect woman — all the calm
High motherhood of Here, the sweet smile
Of Cypris, fair Athene's earnest eyes,
And the young purity of Artemis,
Blent in a perfect woman; and in her arms,
Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves
Of Beauty into a new Innocence,
A child with eyes divine, a little child,
A little child — no more.
And those great gods,
Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly form
Strong not to act but suffer; fair and meek,
Not proud and eager; with soft eyes of grace,
Not bold with joyous youth; and for the fire
Of song, and for the happy careless life,
A sorrowful pilgrimage — changed, yet the same,
Only Diviner far; and bearing higher
The Life God-lighted and the Sacrifice.

And when these faded wholly, at my side,
Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms,
I was aware once more of her, my guide
Psyche, who had not left me, floating near
On golden wings; and all the plains of heaven
Were left to us, me and my soul alone.

Then, when my thought revived again, I said
Whispering, " But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source
And Sire of all the gods. "
And she, bent low
With downcast eyes: " Nay. Thou hast seen of Him
All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms
Which are but parts of Him and are indeed
Attributes of the Substance which supports
The Universe of Things — the Soul of the World,
The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source
Into no Sea. His Purity, His Strength,
His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule
Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part
And not the whole, being a finite mind
Too weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou see
All of Him visible to mortal sight,
Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods —
Glorified essences of Human mould,
Who are but Zeus made visible to men —
See Him not wholly, only some thin edge
And halo of His glory; nor know they
What vast and unsuspected Universes
Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those
Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun
Moves with his system, or those darker still
Which not even thus we know, but yet exist
Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk
In the awful Depths of Space; or that which is
Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,
Sown thro' the void — the faintest gleam of light
Which sets itself to Be. And yet He lives
There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes
To this our heaven, which is so like to earth
But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows
Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks
It cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,
Thy Life will rush to His — the tiny spark
Absorbed in that full blaze — and what there is
Of mortal fall from thee. "
But I: " Oh, soul,
What holdeth Life more precious than to know
The Giver and to die? "
Then she: " Behold!
Look upward and adore. "
And with the word,
Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,
The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak
Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare
Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow,
Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at last
It left the summit clear.
Then with a bound,
In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,
I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,
Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me
And flood my being round, and draw my life
Into itself. I saw my guide bent down
Prostrate, her wings before her face; and then
No more.