Enter, as in the Temple of Jerusalem,
ATHALIA, MATHAN, ABNER

[Mathan]
WHY, to our Wonder, in this Place is seen,
Thus discompos'd, and alter'd, Juda's Queen?
May we demand, what Terrors seize your Breast,
Or, why your Steps are to this House addrest,
Where your unguarded Person stands expos'd
To secret Foes, within its Walls inclos'd?
Can it be thought that you remit that Hate?


[Athalia]
No more! but Both observe what I relate:
Not, that I mean (recalling Times of Blood)

Behold! three sister-wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chast, the splendrous counterfeit
Of Juno, Venus and the warlike Maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd;
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble meen;
The sweet victorious beauties and desires
O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires;
The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn
From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd honours of their own, to boot.

Behold! three sister-wonders, in whom met,
Distinct and chast, the splendrous counterfeit
Of Juno, Venus and the warlike Maid,
Each in their three divinities array'd;
The majesty and state of Heav'ns great Queen,
And when she treats the gods, her noble meen;
The sweet victorious beauties and desires
O' th' sea-born princess, empresse too of fires;
The sacred arts and glorious lawrels torn
From the fair brow o' th' goddesse father-born;
All these were quarter'd in each snowy coat,
With canton'd honours of their own, to boot.

Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,
So little here, nay lost. But Eve was Eve;
This far his over-match, who, self-deceived
And rash, beforehand had no better weighed
The strength he was to cope with, or his own.
But—as a man who had been matchless held
In cunning, over-reached where least he thought,
To salve his credit, and for very spite,

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,
His proud imaginations thus displayed:--
"Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven!--
For, since no deep within her gulf can hold

Uncharmable charmer
Of Bacchus and Mars
In the sounding rebounding
Abyss of the stars!
O virgin in armour,
Thine arrows unsling
In the brilliant resilient
First rays of the spring!

By the force of the fashion
Of love, when I broke
Through the shroud, through the cloud,
Through the storm, through the smoke,
To the mountain of passion
Volcanic that woke ---
By the rage of the mage
I invoke, I invoke!

By the midnight of madness: -
The lone-lying sea,
The swoon of the moon,
Your swoon into me,

Si credere dignum est.--Virgil, Georgics, III, 390


Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was,
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines!
No question, that adventure came to pass
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines,
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines,
The sky's embrace,--below, above, around,
All hardened into black without a bound.

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim
With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice:

---anankta ton pantôn huperbal-
lonta chronon makarôn.
Pindar. Hymn. frag. 33


Spirit of the days of yore!
Thou! who, in thy haunted cave,
By the torrent's sounding shore,
Mark'st the autumnal tempest rave:
Or, where on some ivied wall
Twilight-mingled moonbeams fall,
Deep in aisles and cloisters dim,
Hear'st the grey monks' verpser hymn:
Or, beneath the cypress shade,
Where forgotten chiefs are laid,
Pacing slow with solemn tread,
Breathest the verse that wakes the dead---
By the ivied convent lone,

---anankta ton pantôn huperbal-
lonta chronon makarôn.
Pindar. Hymn. frag. 33


I

As the mountain-torrent rages,
Loud, impetuous, swift, and strong,
So the rapid streams of ages
Rolls with ceaseless tide along.
Man's little day what clouds o'ercast!
How soon his longest day is past!
All-conquering DEATH, in solemn date unfurl'd,
Comes, like the burning desert blast,
And sweeps him from the world.
The noblest works of human pow'r
In vain resist the fate-fraught hour;
The marble hall, the rock-built tow'r,

I

Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower
Ring on, ring on unendingly,
Make all the hours a single hour,
For when the dusk begins to flower,
The man I love will come to me! . . .

But no, go slowly as you will,
I should not bid you hasten so,
For while I wait for love to come,
Some other girl is standing dumb,
Fearing her love will go.

II

Oh white steam over the roofs, blow high!
Oh chimes in the tower ring clear and free !
Oh sun awake in the covered sky,
For the man I love, loves me I . . .