)
F MOSCHUS it is commonly said that he was the friend or dis-
ciple of the Alexandrian grammarian, Aristarchus.
F MOSCHUS it is commonly said that he was the friend or dis-
ciple of the Alexandrian grammarian, Aristarchus.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v18 - Mom to Old
"Is it the Glittering Plain ?
" said the
second of the seekers. "Yea, forsooth," said the Warden. Said
the sad man, "Will ye lead us to the King? " "Ye shall come
to the King," said the Warden. "When, oh, when? " cried they
out all three. "The morrow of to-morrow, maybe," said the
Warden. "Oh! if to-morrow were but come! " they cried. “It
will come," said the red man: "enter ye the house. and eat and
drink and rest you. "
So they entered, and the Warden heeded Hallblithe nothing.
They ate and drank and then went to their rest; and Hallblithe
lay in a shut-bed off from the hall, but the Warden brought
the seekers otherwhere, so that Hallblithe saw them not after
he had gone to bed; but as for him, he slept and forgot that
aught was. In the morning when he awoke he felt very strong
and well-liking; and he beheld his limbs that they were clear
of skin and sleek and fair; and he heard one hard by in the
hall caroling and singing joyously. So he sprang from his bed
with the wonder of sleep yet in him, and drew the curtains of
the shut-bed and looked forth into the hall: and lo! on the high-
seat a man of thirty winters by seeming, tall, fair of fashion,
with golden hair and eyes as gray as glass, proud and noble of
aspect; and anigh him sat another man of like age to look on,
-a man strong and burly, with short curling brown hair and a
red beard, and ruddy countenance, and the mien of a warrior.
Also, up & down the hall, paced a man younger of aspect than
these two, tall and slender, black-haired & dark-eyed, amorous
of countenance; he it was who was singing a snatch of song as
he went lightly on the hall pavement,—a snatch like to this:
FAIR is the world, now autumn's wearing,
And the sluggard sun lies long abed;
Sweet are the days, now winter's nearing,
And all winds feign that the wind is dead.
Dumb is the hedge where the crabs hang yellow,
Bright as the blossoms of the spring;
Dumb is the close where the pears grow mellow,
And none but the dauntless red breast sing.
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Fair was the spring, but amidst his greening
Gray were the days of the hidden sun;
Fair was the summer, but overweening,
So soon his o'er-sweet days were done.
Come then, love, for peace is upon us;
Far off is failing, and far is fear,
Here where the rest in the end hath won us
In the garnering tide of the happy year.
Come from the gray old house by the water.
Where, far from the lips of the hungry sea,
Green groweth the grass o'er the field of the slaughter,
And all is a tale for thee and me.
So Hallblithe did on his raiment and went into the hall; &
when those three saw him, they smiled upon him kindly and
greeted him; and the noble man at the board said: "Thanks
have thou, O Warrior of the Raven, for thy help in our need;
thy reward from us shall not be lacking. Then the brown-
haired man came up to him, and clapped him on the back and
said to him: "Brisk man of the Raven, good is thy help at
need; even so shall be mine to thee henceforward. " But the
young man stepped up to him lightly, and cast his arms about
him, and kissed him, and said: "O friend and fellow, who know-
eth but I may one day help thee as thou hast holpen me?
though thou art one who by seeming mayst well help thyself.
And now mayst thou be as merry as I am to-day! " Then they
all three cried out joyously: "It is the Land! It is the Land! "
So Hallblithe knew that these men were the two elders and the
sad man of yesterday, and that they had renewed their youth.
Joyously now did those men break their fast; nor did Hallblithe
make any grim countenance, for he thought, "That which these
dotards and drivelers have been mighty enough to find, shall I
not be mighty enough to flee from? " Breakfast done, the seek-
ers made little delay, so eager as they were to behold the King,
and to have handsel of their new sweet life. So they got them.
ready to depart, and the once-captain said: "Art thou able to
lead us to the King, O Raven-son, or must we seek another man
to do so much for us? " Said Hallblithe: "I am able to lead
you so nigh unto Wood-end (where, as I deem, the King abideth)
that ye shall not miss him. " Therewith they went to the door,
## p. 10346 (#170) ##########################################
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WILLIAM MORRIS
and the Warden unlocked to them, & spake no word to them
when they departed, though they thanked him kindly for the
guesting. When they were without the garth, the young man
fell to running about the meadow, plucking great handfuls of the
rich flowers that grew about, singing & caroling the while. But
he who had been king looked up and down and round about,
and said at last: "Where be the horses and the men? " But his
fellow with the red beard said: "Raven-son, in this land when
they journey, what do they as to riding or going afoot? " Said
Hallblithe: "Fair fellows, ye shall wot that in this land folk
go afoot for the most part, both men and women; whereas they
weary but little, and are in no haste. " Then the once-captain
clapped the once-king on the shoulder, and said: "Hearken, lord,
and delay no longer, but gird up thy gown, since here is no
mare's son to help thee; for fair is to-day that lies before us,
with many a fair new day beyond it. " So Hallblithe led the
way inward, thinking of many things, yet but little of his fel-
lows. Albeit they, and the younger man especially, were of many
words; for this black-haired man had many questions to ask,
chiefly concerning the women, what they were like to look on,
and of what mood they were. Hallblithe answered thereto as long
as he might, but at last he laughed and said: "Friend, forbear
thy questions now; for meseemeth in a few hours thou shalt be
as wise hereon as is the god of love himself. "
So they made diligence along the road, and all was tiding-
less till on the second day at even they came to the first house
off the waste. There had they good welcome, and slept. But
on the morrow when they arose, Hallblithe spake to the seek-
ers, and said: "Now are things much changed betwixt us since
the time when we first met; for then I had all my desire, as
I thought, and ye had but one desire, and well-nigh lacked hope
of its fulfillment. Whereas now the lack hath left you and
come to me. Wherefore even as time agone ye might not abide
even one night at the House of the Raven, so hard as your
desire lay on you,-
even so it fareth with me to-day, that I am
consumed with my desire, and I may not abide with you; lest
that befall which befalleth betwixt the full man and the fasting.
Wherefore now I bless you & depart. " They abounded in words
of goodwill to him, and the once-king said: "Abide with us,
and we shall see to it that thou have all the dignities that a
man may think of. " And the once-captain said: "Lo, here is mine
-
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10347
hand that hath been mighty; never shalt thou lack it for the ac-
complishment of thine uttermost desire: abide with us. "
Lastly said the young man: "Abide with us, Son of the
Raven! Set thine heart on a fair woman, yea even were it the
fairest, and I will get her for thee; yea, even were my desire
set on her. " But he smiled on them, and shook his head, and
said: "All hail to you! but mine errand is yet undone. ” And
therewith he departed. He skirted Wood-end and came not to it,
but got him down to the side of the sea, not far from where he
first came aland, but somewhat south of it. A fair oak-wood came
down close to the beach of the sea; it was some four miles end-
long and over-thwart. Thither Hallblithe betook him, and in a
day or two got him woodwright's tools from a house of men a
little outside the wood, three miles from the sea-shore. Then he
set to work and built him a little frame house on a lawn of the
wood beside a clear stream; for he was a very deft woodwright.
Withal he made him a bow & arrows, and shot what he would
of the fowl and the deer for his livelihood; and folk from that
house and otherwhence came to see him, & brought him bread
and wine and spicery and other matters which he needed. And
the days wore, and men got used to him, and loved him as if he
had been a rare image which had been brought to that land for
its adornment; & now they no longer called him the Spearman,
but the Wood-lover. And as for him, he took all in patience,
abiding what the lapse of days should bring forth.
ICELAND FIRST SEEN
O FROM our loitering ship
Ľ
a new land at last to be seen;
Toothed rocks down the side of the firth,
on the east guard a weary wide lea,
And black slope the hillsides above,
striped adown with their desolate green:
And a peak rises up on the west
from the meeting of cloud and sea,
Foursquare from base unto point
like the building of gods that have been,-
The last of that waste of the mountains
all cloud-wreathed and snow-flecked and gray,
And bright with the dawn that began
just now at the ending of day.
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WILLIAM MORRIS
Ah! what came we forth for to see,
that our hearts are so hot with desire?
Is it enough for our rest,
the sight of this desolate strand,
And the mountain waste voiceless as death
but for winds that may sleep not nor tire?
Why do we long to wend forth
through the length and breadth of a land
Dreadful with grinding of ice
and record of scarce hidden fire,
But that there 'mid the gray grassy dales
sore scarred by the ruining streams
Lives the tale of the Northland of old
and the undying glory of dreams?
O land, as some cave by the sea
where the treasures of old have been laid,
The sword it may be of a king
whose name was the turning of fight;
Or the staff of some wise of the world
that many things made and unmade;
Or the ring of a woman, maybe,
whose woe is grown wealth and delight:
No wheat and no wine grows above it,
no orchard for blossom and shade;
The few ships that sail by its blackness
but deem it the mouth of a grave;
Yet sure when the world shall awaken,
this too shall be mighty to save.
Or rather, O land, if a marvel
it seemeth that men ever sought
Thy wastes for a field and a garden
fulfilled of all wonder and doubt,
And feasted amidst of the winter
when the fight of the year had been fought,
Whose plunder all gathered together
was little to babble about,
Cry aloud from thy wastes, O thou land,
"Not for this nor for that was I wrought.
Amid waning of realms and of riches
and death of things worshiped and sure.
I abide here the spouse of a God,
and I made and I make and endure. "
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10349
O Queen of the grief without knowledge,
of the courage that may not avail,
Of the longing that may not attain,
of the love that shall never forget,
More joy than the gladness of laughter
thy voice hath amidst of its wail;
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled
amidst of thy blindness is set;
More glorious than gaining of all
thine unfaltering hand that shall fail:
For what is the mark on thy brow
but the brand that thy Brynhild doth bear?
Lone once, and loved and undone
by a love that no ages outwear.
Ah! when thy Balder comes back
And bears from the heart of the sun
Peace and the healing of pain,
and the wisdom that waiteth no more;
And the lilies are laid on thy brow
'mid the crown of the deeds thou hast done;
And the roses spring up by thy feet
that the rocks of the wilderness wore:
Ah! when thy Balder comes back
and we gather the gains he hath won,
Shall we not linger a little
to talk of thy sweetness of old,
Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail
whence the Gods stood aloof to behold?
INTRODUCTION TO THE EARTHLY PARADISE'
F HEAVEN or hell I have no power to sing;
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
OⓇ
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.
But rather, when aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die,-
## p. 10350 (#174) ##########################################
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WILLIAM MORRIS
Remember me a little then, I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;
So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,
Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an idle day.
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
Folks say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines arow,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day.
So with this Earthly Paradise it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day.
FROM L'ENVOI OF THE EARTHLY PARADISE'
ERE are we for the last time face to face,
H
Thou and I, Book, before I bid thee speed
Upon thy perilous journey to that place
For which I have done on thee pilgrim's weed,
Striving to get thee all things for thy need.
Though what harm if thou die upon the way,
Thou idle singer of an empty day?
## p. 10351 (#175) ##########################################
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10351
But though this land desired thou never reach,
Yet folk who know it mayst thou meet or death;
Therefore a word unto thee would I teach
To answer these, who, noting thy weak breath,
Thy wandering eyes, thy heart of little faith,
May make thy fond desire a sport and play,
Mocking the singer of an empty day.
That land's name, say'st thou? and the road thereto ?
Nay, Book, thou mockest, saying thou know'st it not;
Surely no book of verse I ever knew
But ever was the heart within him hot
To gain the Land of Matters Unforgot:
There, now we both laugh-as the whole world may,
At us poor singers of an empty day.
Nay, let it pass, and hearken! Hast thou heard
That therein I believe I have a friend,
Of whom for love I may not be afeard?
It is to him indeed I bid thee wend;
Yea, he perchance may meet thee ere thou end,
Dying so far off from the hedge of bay,
Thou idle singer of an empty day!
Well, think of him, I bid thee, on the road,
And if it hap that midst of thy defeat,
Fainting beneath thy follies' heavy load,
My Master, GEOFFREY CHAUCER, thou do meet,
Then shalt thou win a space of rest full sweet;
Then be thou bold, and speak the words I say,
The idle singer of an empty day! .
·
Fearest thou, Book, what answer thou may'st gain,
Lest he should scorn thee, and thereof thou die ?
Nay, it shall not be. -Thou may'st toil in vain,
And never draw the House of Fame anigh;
Yet he and his shall know whereof we cry,-
Shall call it not ill done to strive to lay
The ghosts that crowd about life's empty day
Then let the others go! and if indeed
In some old garden thou and I have wrought,
And made fresh flowers spring up from hoarded seed,
And fragrance of old days and deeds have brought
Back to folk weary,- all was not for naught.
No little part it was for me to play-
The idle singer of an empty day.
## p. 10352 (#176) ##########################################
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L
THE BLUE CLOSET
THE DAMOZELS
ADY ALICE, Lady Louise,
Between the wash of the tumbling seas
We are ready to sing, if so ye please;
So lay your long hands on the keys:
Sing, "Laudate pueri. "
And ever the great bell overhead
Boomed in the wind a knell for the dead,-
Though no one tolled it, a knell for the dead.
LADY LOUISE
Sister, let the measure swell
Not too loud; for you sing not well
If you drown the faint boom of the bell:
He is weary, so am I.
And ever the chevron overhead
Flapped on the banner of the dead.
(Was he asleep, or was he dead? )
LADY ALICE
Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen,
Two damozels wearing purple and green,
Four lone ladies dwelling here
From day to day and year to year;
And there is none to let us go,-
To break the locks of the doors below,
Or shovel away the heaped-up snow;
And when we die, no man will know
That we are dead: but they give us leave,
Once every year on Christmas Eve,
To sing in the Closet Blue one song;
And we should be so long, so long,
If we dared, in singing: for dream on dream,
They float on in a happy stream;
Float from the gold strings, float from the keys,
Float from the opened lips of Louise:
But alas! the sea-salt oozes through
The chinks of the tiles of the Closet Blue;
And ever the great bell overhead
Booms in the wind a knell for the dead,-
The wind plays on it a knell for the dead.
## p. 10353 (#177) ##########################################
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10353
[They sing all together. ]
How long ago was it, how long ago,
He came to this tower with hands full of snow?
"Kneel down, O love Louise, kneel down," he said,
And sprinkled the dusty snow over my head.
He watched the snow melting,—it ran through my hair,
Ran over my shoulders, white shoulders and bare.
"I cannot weep for thee, poor love Louise,
For my tears are all hidden deep under the seas:
"In a gold and blue casket she keeps all my tears,
But my eyes are no longer blue as in old years;
"Yea, they grow gray with time, grow small and dry:
I am so feeble now, would I might die. "
And in truth the great bell overhead
Left off his pealing for the dead,-
Perchance because the wind was dead.
Will he come back again, or is he dead?
Oh, is he sleeping, my scarf round his head?
Or did they strangle him as he lay there,
With the long scarlet scarf I used to wear?
Only I pray thee, Lord, let him come here!
Both his soul and his body to me are most dear.
Dear Lord, that loves me, I wait to receive
Either body or spirit this wild Christmas Eve.
XVIII-648
What matter that his cheeks were pale,
His kind kissed lips all gray?
"O love Louise, have you waited long? "
"O my lord Arthur, yea. "
Through the floor shot up a lily red,
With a patch of earth from the land of the dead,—
For he was strong in the land of the dead.
What if his hair that brushed her cheek
Was stiff with frozen rime?
His eyes were grown quite blue again,
As in the happy time.
## p. 10354 (#178) ##########################################
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10354
"O love Louise, this is the key
Of the happy golden land! "
"O sisters, cross the bridge with me,-
My eyes are full of sand.
What matter that I cannot see,
If he take me by the hand? »
And ever the great bell overhead
And the tumbling seas mourned for the dead;
For their song ceased, and they were dead.
THE DAY IS COMING
OME hither lads and hearken,
for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming,
when all shall be better than well.
COME
And the tale shall be told of a country,
a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England
in the days that are going to be.
There more than one in a thousand,
in the days that are yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow,
some joy of the ancient home.
For then-laugh not, but listen
to this strange tale of mine-
All folk that are in England
shall be better lodged than swine.
Then a man shall work and bethink him,
and rejoice in the deeds of his hand;
Nor yet come home in the even
too faint and weary to stand.
Men in that time a-coming
shall work and have no fear
For to-morrow's lack of earning,
and the hunger-wolf anear.
I tell you this for a wonder,
that no man then shall be glad
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10355
Of his fellow's fall and mishap,
to snatch at the work he had.
For that which the worker winneth
shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing
by him that sowed no seed.
Oh, strange new wonderful justice!
But for whom shall we gather the gain?
For ourselves and for each of our fellows,
and no hand shall labor in vain.
Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours,
and no more shall any man crave
For riches that serve for nothing
but to fetter a friend for a slave.
And what wealth then shall be left us,
when none shall gather gold
To buy his friend in the market,
and pinch and pine the sold?
Nay, what save the lovely city,
and the little house on the hill,
And the wastes and the woodland beauty,
and the happy fields we till;
And the homes of ancient stories,
the tombs of the mighty dead;
And the wise men seeking out marvels,
and the poet's teeming head;
And the painter's hand of wonder,
and the marvelous fiddle-bow,
And the banded choirs of music:
all those that do and know.
For all these shall be ours and all men's;
nor shall any lack a share
Of the toil and the gain of living,
in the days when the world grows fair.
Ah! such are the days that shall be!
But what are the deeds of to-day,
In the days of the years we dwell in,
that wear our lives away?
## p. 10356 (#180) ##########################################
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Why, then, and for what are we waiting?
There are three words to speak:
We will it, and what is the foeman
but the dream-strong wakened and weak?
Oh, why and for what are we waiting,
while our brothers droop and die,
And on every wind of the heavens
a wasted life goes by?
How long shall they reproach us,
where crowd on crowd they dwell,-
Poor ghosts of the wicked city,
the gold-crushed hungry hell?
Through squalid life they labored,
in sordid grief they died. -
Those sons of a mighty mother,
those props of England's pride.
They are gone; there is none can undo it,
nor save our souls from the curse:
But many a million cometh,
and shall they be better or worse?
It is we must answer and hasten,
and open wide the door
For the rich man's hurrying terror,
and the slow-foot hope of the poor.
Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched,
and their unlearned discontent,—
We must give it voice and wisdom
till the waiting-tide be spent.
Come then, since all things call us,
the living and the dead,
And o'er the weltering tangle
a glimmering light is shed.
Come then, let us cast off fooling,
and put by ease and rest,
For the Cause alone is worthy
till the good days bring the best.
Come, join in the only battle
wherein no man can fail,
## p. 10357 (#181) ##########################################
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10357
Where whoso fadeth and dieth,
yet his deed shall still prevail.
S
Ah! come, cast off all fooling,
for this, at least, we know:
That the dawn and the day is coming,
and forth the banners go.
KIARTAN BIDS FAREWELL TO GUDRUN
From The Lovers of Gudrun '
O PASSED away
Yule-tide at Herdholt, cold day following day,
Till spring was gone, and Gudrun had not failed
To win both many days where joy prevailed,
And many a pang of fear; till so it fell
That in the summer whereof now we tell,
Upon a day in blithe mood Kiartan came
To Bathstead not as one who looks for blame,
And Bodli with him, sad-eyed, silent, dull,
Noted of Gudrun, who no less was full
Of merry talk,-yea, more than her wont was.
But as the hours toward eventide did pass,
Said Kiartan:
"Love, make we the most of bliss,
For though, indeed, not the last day this is
Whereon we twain shall meet in such a wise,
Yet shalt thou see me soon in fighting guise,
And hear the horns blow up our Loth to go;
For in White-River- »
"Is it even so,"
She broke in, "that these feet abide behind?
Men call me hard, but thou hast known me kind;
Men call me fair-my body give I thee;
Men call me dainty- let the rough salt sea
Deal with me as it will, so thou be near!
Let me share glory with thee, and take fear
That thy heart throws aside! "
Hand joined to hand,
As one who prays, and trembling, did she stand
With parted lips, and pale and weary-faced.
But up and down the hall-floor Bodli paced
## p. 10358 (#182) ##########################################
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With clanking sword, and brows set in a frown,
And scarce less pale than she. The sun low down
Shone through the narrow windows of the hall,
And on the gold upon her dress did fall,
And gilt her slim clasped hands.
There Kiartan stood
Gazing upon her in strange wavering mood,
Now longing sore to clasp her to his heart,
And pray her, too, that they might ne'er depart,
Now well-nigh ready to say such a word
As cutteth love across as with a sword;
So fought love in him with the craving vain
The love of all the wondering world to gain,
Though such he named it not. And so at last
His eyes upon the pavement did he cast,
And knit his brow as though some word to say:
Then fell her outstretched hands; she cried,
“Nay, nay!
Thou need'st not speak: I will not ask thee twice
To take a gift, a good gift, and be wise;
I know my heart, thou know'st it not: farewell,-
Maybe that other tales the Skalds shall tell
Than of thy great deeds. "
Still her face was pale,
As with a sound betwixt a sigh and wail
She brushed by Bodli, who aghast did stand
With open mouth and vainly stretched-out hand;
But Kiartan followed her a step or two,
Then stayed, bewildered by his sudden woe;
But even therewith, as nigh the door she was,
She turned back suddenly, and straight did pass,
Trembling all over, to his side, and said
With streaming eyes:-
"Let not my words be weighed
As man's words are! O fair love, go forth
And come thou back again,-made no more worth
Unto this heart, but worthier it may be
run
To the dull world, thy worth that cannot see.
Go forth, and let the rumor of thee ru
Through every land that is beneath the sun;
For know I not, indeed, that everything
Thou winnest at the hands of lord or king,
Is surely mine, as thou art mine at last ? »
Then round about his neck her arms she cast,
## p. 10359 (#183) ##########################################
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10359
$
And wept right sore: and, touched with love and shame,
Must Kiartan offer to leave hope of fame,
And noble life; but 'midst her tears she smiled,—
"Go forth, my love, and be thou not beguiled
By woman's tears, I spake but as a fool;
We of the north wrap not our men in wool,
Lest they should die at last: nay, be not moved
To think that thou a faint-heart fool hast loved! "
---
For now his tears fell too; he said, "My sweet,
Ere the ship sails we yet again shall meet
To say farewell, a little while; and then,
When I come back to hold my place 'mid men,
With honor won for thee-how fair it is
To think on now, the sweetness and the bliss! "
Some little words she said no pen can write,
Upon his face she laid her fingers white,
And 'midst of kisses with his hair did play;
Then, smiling through her tears, she went away.
Nor heeded Bodli aught.
Men say the twain,
Kiartan and Gudrun, never met again
In loving wise; that each to each no more
Their eyes looked kind on this side death's dark shore;
That 'midst their tangled life they must forget,
Till they were dead, that ere their lips had met.
## p. 10360 (#184) ##########################################
10360
MOSCHUS
(THIRD CENTURY B. C.
)
F MOSCHUS it is commonly said that he was the friend or dis-
ciple of the Alexandrian grammarian, Aristarchus. In this
fact we may possibly find the keynote of his poetic manner,
and a just estimate of his value. For his poems are completely
wrought-out work, marked now and then by a rare felicity of expres-
sion. They are what would naturally be produced by the educated
man of poetic feeling, whose eye and ear had been trained by the
rules and literary conventions of the greatest critic of his time.
The writer of the 'Elegy on Bion' asserts that he was Bion's
pupil; and that while the master left his goods to others, his song he
left to him. This relationship would make Moschus- to whom the
elegy is commonly assigned — a younger contemporary of both The-
ocritus and Bion, who flourished about B. C. 275. Although a native
of Syracuse, he is said to have lived much at Alexandria.
To him is also commonly ascribed the authorship of 'Love the
Runaway,' a poem of exquisite grace after the manner of Anacreon,
in which Cypris sketches her runaway boy, and offers a reward to
the one who will bring him back. Three other idyls and a few slight
pieces are also supposed to be his.
But the fame of Moschus rests upon the lament for Bion. It is
a poem of only one hundred and thirty-three lines, but withal most
elaborate, delicate, clear, and luxuriant in its imagery. All nature
laments Bion's death; and this very exuberance and poetic excess
have led critics to think the poem forced and affected, as Dr. John-
son pronounced Lycidas' to be. But considering that this very
element of appeal to nature is in the heart of us all at times of
great grief, when the imagination is awakened and the judgment
often passive,- with this consideration, such elegies are more natural,
direct, and simple. Sorrow, which acts physiologically as a stimulus
to nerve action, brings out the inconsistency of human nature, and
shows that inconsistency to be real consistency. We must abandon
ourselves to the writer's attitude of mind in order to apprehend it.
It is in the ebb of grief that the poetic impulse comes, not in its
full tide and freshness. "To publish a sorrow," says Lowell,
"is in some sort to advertise its unreality; for I have observed in
my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively
. . .
## p. 10361 (#185) ##########################################
MOSCHUS
10361
hides its face with its hands and is silent. Depend upon it,
Petrarch [loved] his sonnets better than Laura, who was indeed but
his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard that
muffled rattle of the clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss,
you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies.
hateful; "—if not hateful, certainly inadequate for expression of the
deeper grief of life.
The undoubted model for this idyl of Moschus was Bion's lament
for Adonis, which is quoted under the article on Bion. Like that
exquisite poem, Moschus's threnody is an outburst over the eternal
mystery of death. Death means to us the loss of the departed one
from our affectionate association. And above all, with true Greek
feeling there is felt the loss to him of all that sweet life held,-the
piping by the waters, the care of his flock, the soft airs of bucolic
Sicily. The song is a touching lamentation upon the giving up of
joyous life, and going down to "the senseless earth" and the shades
of Orcus.
THE LAMENTATION FOR BION
MOA
Μ
The remains of Moschus have been edited by H. L. Ahrens in
'Reliquiæ Bucolicorum Græcorum' (1861), and also by Brunck, Bois-
sonade, and others. They have been turned into English by Fawkes
(Chalmers's English Poets) and also by Messrs. Polwhele, Chapman,
and Banks.
•
OAN with me, moan, ye woods and Dorian waters,
And weep, ye rivers, the delightful Bion;
And more than ever now, O hyacinth, show
Your written sorrows: the sweet singer's dead.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,
Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,
Bion the shepherd's dead; and that with him
Melody's dead, and gone the Dorian song.
Ye plants, now stand in tears; murmur, ye graves;
Ye flowers, sigh forth your odors with sad buds;
Flush deep, ye roses and anemones;
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Weep on the waters, ye Strymonian swans,
And utter forth a melancholy song,
Tender as his whose voice was like your own;
And say to the Eagrian girls, and say
## p. 10362 (#186) ##########################################
10362
MOSCHUS
To all the nymphs haunting in Bistany,
The Doric Orpheus is departed from us.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
No longer pipes he to the charmèd herds,
No longer sits under the lonely oaks
And sings; but to the ears of Pluto now
Tunes his Lethean verse: and so the hills
Are voiceless; and the cows that follow still
Beside the bulls, low and will not be fed.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Apollo, Bion, wept thy sudden fate;
The Satyrs too, and the Priapuses
Dark-veiled, and for that song of thine the Pans
Groaned; and the fountain-nymphs within the woods
Mourned for thee, melting into tearful waters;
Echo too mourned among the rocks that she
Must hush, and imitate thy lips no longer;
Trees and the flowers put off their loveliness;
Milk flows not as 'twas used; and in the hive
The honey molders,- for there is no need,
Now that thy honey's gone, to look for more.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Not so the dolphins mourned by the salt sea,
Not so the nightingale among the rocks,
Not so the swallow over the far downs,
Not so Ceyx called for his Halcyone,
Not so in the eastern valleys Memnon's bird
Screamed o'er his sepulchre for the Morning's son,
As all have mourned for the departed Bion.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales and swallows, every one
Whom he once charmed and taught to sing at will,
Plain to each other midst the green tree boughs,
With other birds o'erhead. Mourn too, ye doves.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Who now shall play thy pipe, O most desired one!
Who lay his lip against thy reeds? who dare it?
For still they breathe of thee and of thy mouth,
And Echo comes to seek her voices there.
Pan's be they, and even he shall fear perhaps
To sound them, lest he be not first hereafter.
## p. 10363 (#187) ##########################################
MOSCHUS
10363
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
And Galatea weeps, who loved to hear thee,
Sitting beside thee on the calm sea-shore:
For thou didst play far better than the Cyclops,
And him the fair one shunned: but thee, but thee,
She used to look at sweetly from the water;
But now, forgetful of the deep, she sits
On the lone sands, and feeds thy herd for thee.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
The Muses' gifts all died with thee, O shepherd:
Men's admiration, and sweet woman's kisses.
The Loves about thy sepulchre weep sadly;
For Venus loved thee, much more than the kiss
With which of late she kissed Adonis, dying.
Thou too, O Meles, sweetest voiced of rivers,
Thou too hast undergone a second grief;
For Homer first, that sweet mouth of Calliope,
Was taken from hee; and they say thou mourned'st
For thy great son with many-sobbing streams,
Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice.
And now again thou weepest for a son,
Melting away in misery. Both of them
Were favorites of the fountain-nymphs: one drank
The Pegasean fount, and one his cup
Filled out of Arethuse; the former sang
The bright Tyndarid lass, and the great son
Of Thetis, and Atrides Menelaus;
But he, the other, not of wars or tears
Told us, but intermixed the pipe he played
With songs of herds, and as he sung he fed them;
And he made pipes, and milked the gentle heifer,
And taught us how to kiss, and cherished love
Within his bosom, and was worthy of Venus.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Every renownèd city and every town
Mourns for thee, Bion: Ascra weeps thee more
Than her own Hesiod; the Boeotian woods
Ask not for Pindar so, nor patriot Lesbos
For her Alcæus; nor the Ægean isle
Her poet; nor does Paros so wish back
Archilochus; and Mitylene now,
Instead of Sappho's verses, rings with thine.
All the sweet pastoral poets weep for thee :-
-
## p. 10364 (#188) ##########################################
10364
MOSCHUS
Sicelidas the Samian; Lycidas,
Who used to look so happy; and at Cos,
Philetas; and at Syracuse, Theocritus,
All in their several dialects; and I,
I too, no stranger to the pastoral song,
Sing thee a dirge Ausonian, such as thou
Taughtest thy scholars, honoring us as all
Heirs of the Dorian Muse. Thou didst bequeath
Thy store to others, but to me thy song.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Alas! when mallows in the garden die,
Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,
They live again, and flower another year;
But we, how great soe'er, or strong, or wise,
When once we die, sleep in the senseless earth
A long, an endless, unawakable sleep.
Thou too in earth must be laid silently;
But the nymphs please to let the frog sing on;
Nor envy I, for what he sings is worthless.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
There came, O Bion, poison to thy mouth;
Thou didst feel poison; how could it approach
Those lips of thine, and not be turned to sweet!
Who could be so delightless as to mix it,
Or bid be mixed, and turn him from thy song!
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
But justice reaches all; and thus, meanwhile,
I weep thy fate. And would I could descend
Like Orpheus to the shades, or like Ulysses,
Or Hercules before him: I would go
To Pluto's house, and see if you sang there,
And hark to what you sang. Play to Proserpina
Something Sicilian, some delightful pastoral;
For she once played on the Sicilian shores,
The shores of Etna, and sang Dorian songs,
And so thou wouldst be honored; and as Orpheus
For his sweet harping had his love again,
She would restore thee to our mountains, Bion.
Oh, had I but the power, I, I would do it!
Translation of Leigh Hunt.
-
## p. 10365 (#189) ##########################################
10365
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
(1797-1835)
HE short life of William Motherwell was involved in much
that was uncongenial to his nature and obstructive to his
talent; else his sensibility and imagination, and his lyric
gift, might have found fuller expression. Several of his Scotch bal-
lads are unexcelled for sweetness and pathos. The reflective poems
show exquisite delicacy of feeling. The Battle Flag of Sigurd,'
'The Sword Chant of Thorstein Raudi,' ring with manliness. The
collection as a whole shows a wide range
of poetic power.
His other noteworthy work, Minstrelsy,
Ancient and Modern' (1827), displays
taste and critical ability. The essay upon
ancient minstrelsy with which he prefaced
the collection attracted the admiring atten-
tion of Sir Walter Scott, and remains an
authority upon the subject.
But the gifted Scotchman, who was born
in Glasgow in 1797, hid under his outward
reserve a sensitively artistic nature, that
suffered from contact with the practicalities
of life. Much of his childhood was passed
in Edinburgh, where he spent happy days.
roaming about the old town; and where, in Mr. Lennie's private
school, he met the pretty Jeanie Morrison of his famous ballad. He
was a dreamy, unstudious lad, with little taste for science or the
classics, although passionately fond of imaginative literature.
At fifteen he was placed to study law in the office of the sheriff-
clerk of Paisley, where he was made in time deputy sheriff-clerk,
and principal clerk of the county of Renfrew. But he was always
inclined toward a literary career; and beginning very young to
contribute poems and sketches to various periodicals, he gradually
drifted into journalism, with which he was still connected at the time
of his death in 1835. A man peculiarly alive to outside impressions,
he was thus for years subjected to the unpoetic details of editorial
work; and this, acting upon his constitutional inertia, made the poetic
creation of which he was capable especially difficult.
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
## p. 10366 (#190) ##########################################
10366
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
WHEN I BENEATH THE cold, reD EARTH AM SLEEPING
HEN I beneath the cold, red earth am sleeping,
Life's fever o'er,
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I'm no more?
WHEN
Will there be any heart still memory keeping
Of heretofore?
When the great winds, through leafless forests rushing,
Like full hearts break;
When the swollen streams, o'er crag and gully gushing,
Sad music make,-
Will there be one, whose heart despair is crushing,
Mourn for my sake?
When the bright sun upon that spot is shining
With purest ray,
And the small flowers, their buds and blossoms twining
Burst through that clay,-
Will there be one still on that spot repining
Lost hopes all day?
When the night shadows, with the ample sweeping
Of her dark pall,
The world and all its manifold creation sleeping,
The great and small,-
Will there be one, even at that dread hour, weeping
For me- - for all?
When no star twinkles with its eye of glory,
On that low mound,
And wintry storms have with their ruins hoary
Its loneness crowned,-
Will there be then one versed in misery's story
Pacing it round ?
It may be so,- but this is selfish sorrow
To ask such meed;
A weakness and a wickedness to borrow
From hearts that bleed,
The wailings of to-day, for what to-morrow
Shall never need.
――――
Lay me then gently in my narrow dwelling,
Thou gentle heart:
## p. 10367 (#191) ##########################################
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10367
And though thy bosom should with grief be swelling,
Let no tear start;
It were in vain,- for Time hath long been knelling,
"Sad one, depart! "
JEANIE MORRISON
I
'VE wandered east, I've wandered west,
Through mony a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The luve o' life's young day!
The fire that's blawn on Beltane e'en
May weel be black gin Yule;
But blacker fa' awaits the heart
Where first fond luve grows cule.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
The thochts o' bygane years
Still fling their shadows ower my path,
And blind my een wi' tears:
They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears,
And sair and sick I pine,
As memory idly summons up
The blithe blinks o' langsyne.
'Twas then we luvit ilk ither weel,
'Twas then we twa did part;
Sweet time-sad time! twa bairns at scule-
Twa bairns and but ae heart!
'Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink,
To leir ilk ither lear;
And tones and looks and smiles were shed,
Remembered evermair.
I wonder, Jennie, aften yet,
When sitting on that bink,
Cheek touchin' cheek, loof locked in loof,
What our wee heads could think.
When baith bent doun ower ae braid page,
Wi' ae buik on our knee,
Thy lips were on thy lesson, but
My lesson was in thee.
Oh, mind ye how we hung our heads.
How cheeks brent red wi' shame,
## p. 10368 (#192) ##########################################
10368
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
Whene'er the scule-weans laughin' said
We cleeked thegither hame?
And mind ye o' the Saturdays,
(The scule then skail't at noon,)
When we ran off to speel the braes,-
The broomy braes o' June?
My head rins round and round about,
My heart flows like a sea,
As ane by ane the thochts rush back
O' scule-time and o' thee.
O mornin' life! O mornin' luve!
O lichtsome days and lang,
When hinnied hopes around our hearts
Like simmer blossoms sprang!
Oh, mind ye, luve, how aft we left
The deavin' dinsome toun,
To wander by the green burnside,
And hear its waters croon?
The simmer leaves hung ower our heads,
The flowers burst round our feet,
And in the gloamin' o' the wood
The throssil whusslit sweet;
The throssil whusslit in the wood,
The burn sang to the trees,
And we with Nature's heart in tune,
Concerted harmonies;
And on the knowe abune the burn,
For hours thegither sat
In the silentness o' joy, till baith
Wi' very gladness grat.
Ay, ay, dear Jeanie Morrison,
Tears trinkled doun your cheek
Like dew-beads on a rose, yet nane
Had ony power to speak!
That was a time, a blessed time,
When hearts were fresh and young
When freely gushed all feelings forth,
Unsyllabled, unsung!
I marvel, Jeanie Morrison,
Gin I hae been to thee
## p. 10369 (#193) ##########################################
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10369
XVIII-649
As closely twined wi' earliest thochts,
As ye hae been to me?
Oh, tell me gin their music fills
Thine ear as it does mine!
Oh, say gin e'er your heart grows grit
Wi' dreamings o' langsyne?
I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
I've borne a weary lot;
But in my wanderings, far or near,
Ye never were forgot.
The fount that first burst frae this heart
Still travels on its way;
And channels deeper, as it rins,
The luve o' life's young day.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
Since we were sindered young,
I've never seen your face, nor heard
The music o' your tongue;
But I could hug all wretchedness,
And happy could I dee,
Did I but ken your heart still dreamed
O' bygane days and me!
MY HEID IS LIKE TO REND, WILLIE
MY
Y HEID is like to rend, Willie,
My heart is like to break;
I'm wearin' aff my feet, Willie
I'm dyin' for your sake!
Oh, lay your cheek to mine, Willie,
Your hand on my briest-bane;
Oh, say ye'll think on me, Willie,
When I am deid and gane!
It's vain to comfort me, Willie,-
Sair grief maun ha'e its will;
But let me rest upon your briest,
To sab and greet my fill.
Let me sit on your knee, Willie,
Let me shed by your hair,
And look into the face, Willie,
I never sall see mair!
## p. 10370 (#194) ##########################################
10370
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
I'm sittin' on your knee, Willie,
For the last time in my life,—
A puir heart-broken thing, Willie,
A mither, yet nae wife.
Ay, press your hand upon my heart,
And press it mair and mair,
Or it will burst the silken twine,
Sae strang is its despair.
Oh, wae's me for the hour, Willie,
When we thegither met;
Oh, wae's me for the time, Willie,
That our first tryst was set!
Oh, wae's me for the loanin' green
Where we were wont to gae,-
And wae's me for the destinie
That gart me luve thee sae!
―――
Oh, dinna mind my words, Willie,
I downa seek to blame,—
But oh, it's hard to live, Willie,
And dree a warld's shame!
Het tears are hailin' ower your cheek,
And hailin' ower your chin:
Why weep ye sae for worthlessness,
For sorrow, and for sin ?
I'm weary o' this warld, Willie,
And sick wi' a' I see;
I canna live as I hae lived,
Or be as I should be.
But fauld unto your heart, Willie,
The heart that still is thine,
And kiss ance mair the white, white cheek,
Ye said was red langsyne.
A stoun' gaes through my heid, Willie,
A sair stoun' through my heart;
Oh, haud me up and let me kiss
Thy brow ere we twa pairt.
Anither, and anither yet!
How fast my life-strings break!
Fareweel! fareweel! through yon kirk-yard
Step lichtly for my sake!
## p. 10371 (#195) ##########################################
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10371
The lav'rock in the lift, Willie,
That lilts far ower our heid,
Will sing the morn as merrilie
Abune the clay-cauld deid;
And this green turf we're sittin' on,
Wi' dew-draps' shimmerin' sheen,
Will hap the heart that luvit thee
As warld has seldom seen.
But oh, remember me, Willie,
On land where'er ye be,-
And oh, think on the leal, leal heart,
That ne'er luvit ane but thee!
And oh, think on the cauld, cauld mools
That file my yellow hair,-
That kiss the cheek and kiss the chin
Ye never sall kiss mair!
MAY MORN SONG
THE
HE grass is wet with shining dews,
Their silver bells hang on each tree,
While opening flower and bursting bud
Breathe incense forth unceasingly;
The mavis pipes in greenwood shaw,
The throstle glads the spreading thorn,
And cheerily the blithesome lark
Salutes the rosy face of morn.
'Tis early prime:
And hark! hark! hark!
His merry chime
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! he heralds in
The jolly sun with matin hymn.
Come, come, my love! and May-dews shake
In pailfuls from each drooping bough;
They'll give fresh lustre to the bloom
That breaks upon thy young cheek now.
O'er hill and dale, o'er waste and wood,
Aurora's smiles are streaming free;
With earth it seems brave holiday,
In heaven it looks high jubilee.
## p. 10372 (#196) ##########################################
10372
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
And it is right,
For mark, love, mark!
How bathed in light
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! he upward flies,
Like holy thoughts to cloudless skies.
They lack all heart who cannot feel
The voice of heaven within them thrill,
In summer morn, when mounting high
This merry minstrel sings his fill.
Now let us seek yon bosky dell
Where brightest wild-flowers choose to be,
And where its clear stream murmurs on,
Meet type of our love's purity.
No witness there,
And o'er us, hark!
High in the air
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! away soars he,
Bearing to heaven my vows to thee!
## p. 10372 (#197) ##########################################
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second of the seekers. "Yea, forsooth," said the Warden. Said
the sad man, "Will ye lead us to the King? " "Ye shall come
to the King," said the Warden. "When, oh, when? " cried they
out all three. "The morrow of to-morrow, maybe," said the
Warden. "Oh! if to-morrow were but come! " they cried. “It
will come," said the red man: "enter ye the house. and eat and
drink and rest you. "
So they entered, and the Warden heeded Hallblithe nothing.
They ate and drank and then went to their rest; and Hallblithe
lay in a shut-bed off from the hall, but the Warden brought
the seekers otherwhere, so that Hallblithe saw them not after
he had gone to bed; but as for him, he slept and forgot that
aught was. In the morning when he awoke he felt very strong
and well-liking; and he beheld his limbs that they were clear
of skin and sleek and fair; and he heard one hard by in the
hall caroling and singing joyously. So he sprang from his bed
with the wonder of sleep yet in him, and drew the curtains of
the shut-bed and looked forth into the hall: and lo! on the high-
seat a man of thirty winters by seeming, tall, fair of fashion,
with golden hair and eyes as gray as glass, proud and noble of
aspect; and anigh him sat another man of like age to look on,
-a man strong and burly, with short curling brown hair and a
red beard, and ruddy countenance, and the mien of a warrior.
Also, up & down the hall, paced a man younger of aspect than
these two, tall and slender, black-haired & dark-eyed, amorous
of countenance; he it was who was singing a snatch of song as
he went lightly on the hall pavement,—a snatch like to this:
FAIR is the world, now autumn's wearing,
And the sluggard sun lies long abed;
Sweet are the days, now winter's nearing,
And all winds feign that the wind is dead.
Dumb is the hedge where the crabs hang yellow,
Bright as the blossoms of the spring;
Dumb is the close where the pears grow mellow,
And none but the dauntless red breast sing.
## p. 10345 (#169) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10345
Fair was the spring, but amidst his greening
Gray were the days of the hidden sun;
Fair was the summer, but overweening,
So soon his o'er-sweet days were done.
Come then, love, for peace is upon us;
Far off is failing, and far is fear,
Here where the rest in the end hath won us
In the garnering tide of the happy year.
Come from the gray old house by the water.
Where, far from the lips of the hungry sea,
Green groweth the grass o'er the field of the slaughter,
And all is a tale for thee and me.
So Hallblithe did on his raiment and went into the hall; &
when those three saw him, they smiled upon him kindly and
greeted him; and the noble man at the board said: "Thanks
have thou, O Warrior of the Raven, for thy help in our need;
thy reward from us shall not be lacking. Then the brown-
haired man came up to him, and clapped him on the back and
said to him: "Brisk man of the Raven, good is thy help at
need; even so shall be mine to thee henceforward. " But the
young man stepped up to him lightly, and cast his arms about
him, and kissed him, and said: "O friend and fellow, who know-
eth but I may one day help thee as thou hast holpen me?
though thou art one who by seeming mayst well help thyself.
And now mayst thou be as merry as I am to-day! " Then they
all three cried out joyously: "It is the Land! It is the Land! "
So Hallblithe knew that these men were the two elders and the
sad man of yesterday, and that they had renewed their youth.
Joyously now did those men break their fast; nor did Hallblithe
make any grim countenance, for he thought, "That which these
dotards and drivelers have been mighty enough to find, shall I
not be mighty enough to flee from? " Breakfast done, the seek-
ers made little delay, so eager as they were to behold the King,
and to have handsel of their new sweet life. So they got them.
ready to depart, and the once-captain said: "Art thou able to
lead us to the King, O Raven-son, or must we seek another man
to do so much for us? " Said Hallblithe: "I am able to lead
you so nigh unto Wood-end (where, as I deem, the King abideth)
that ye shall not miss him. " Therewith they went to the door,
## p. 10346 (#170) ##########################################
10346
WILLIAM MORRIS
and the Warden unlocked to them, & spake no word to them
when they departed, though they thanked him kindly for the
guesting. When they were without the garth, the young man
fell to running about the meadow, plucking great handfuls of the
rich flowers that grew about, singing & caroling the while. But
he who had been king looked up and down and round about,
and said at last: "Where be the horses and the men? " But his
fellow with the red beard said: "Raven-son, in this land when
they journey, what do they as to riding or going afoot? " Said
Hallblithe: "Fair fellows, ye shall wot that in this land folk
go afoot for the most part, both men and women; whereas they
weary but little, and are in no haste. " Then the once-captain
clapped the once-king on the shoulder, and said: "Hearken, lord,
and delay no longer, but gird up thy gown, since here is no
mare's son to help thee; for fair is to-day that lies before us,
with many a fair new day beyond it. " So Hallblithe led the
way inward, thinking of many things, yet but little of his fel-
lows. Albeit they, and the younger man especially, were of many
words; for this black-haired man had many questions to ask,
chiefly concerning the women, what they were like to look on,
and of what mood they were. Hallblithe answered thereto as long
as he might, but at last he laughed and said: "Friend, forbear
thy questions now; for meseemeth in a few hours thou shalt be
as wise hereon as is the god of love himself. "
So they made diligence along the road, and all was tiding-
less till on the second day at even they came to the first house
off the waste. There had they good welcome, and slept. But
on the morrow when they arose, Hallblithe spake to the seek-
ers, and said: "Now are things much changed betwixt us since
the time when we first met; for then I had all my desire, as
I thought, and ye had but one desire, and well-nigh lacked hope
of its fulfillment. Whereas now the lack hath left you and
come to me. Wherefore even as time agone ye might not abide
even one night at the House of the Raven, so hard as your
desire lay on you,-
even so it fareth with me to-day, that I am
consumed with my desire, and I may not abide with you; lest
that befall which befalleth betwixt the full man and the fasting.
Wherefore now I bless you & depart. " They abounded in words
of goodwill to him, and the once-king said: "Abide with us,
and we shall see to it that thou have all the dignities that a
man may think of. " And the once-captain said: "Lo, here is mine
-
## p. 10347 (#171) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10347
hand that hath been mighty; never shalt thou lack it for the ac-
complishment of thine uttermost desire: abide with us. "
Lastly said the young man: "Abide with us, Son of the
Raven! Set thine heart on a fair woman, yea even were it the
fairest, and I will get her for thee; yea, even were my desire
set on her. " But he smiled on them, and shook his head, and
said: "All hail to you! but mine errand is yet undone. ” And
therewith he departed. He skirted Wood-end and came not to it,
but got him down to the side of the sea, not far from where he
first came aland, but somewhat south of it. A fair oak-wood came
down close to the beach of the sea; it was some four miles end-
long and over-thwart. Thither Hallblithe betook him, and in a
day or two got him woodwright's tools from a house of men a
little outside the wood, three miles from the sea-shore. Then he
set to work and built him a little frame house on a lawn of the
wood beside a clear stream; for he was a very deft woodwright.
Withal he made him a bow & arrows, and shot what he would
of the fowl and the deer for his livelihood; and folk from that
house and otherwhence came to see him, & brought him bread
and wine and spicery and other matters which he needed. And
the days wore, and men got used to him, and loved him as if he
had been a rare image which had been brought to that land for
its adornment; & now they no longer called him the Spearman,
but the Wood-lover. And as for him, he took all in patience,
abiding what the lapse of days should bring forth.
ICELAND FIRST SEEN
O FROM our loitering ship
Ľ
a new land at last to be seen;
Toothed rocks down the side of the firth,
on the east guard a weary wide lea,
And black slope the hillsides above,
striped adown with their desolate green:
And a peak rises up on the west
from the meeting of cloud and sea,
Foursquare from base unto point
like the building of gods that have been,-
The last of that waste of the mountains
all cloud-wreathed and snow-flecked and gray,
And bright with the dawn that began
just now at the ending of day.
## p. 10348 (#172) ##########################################
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WILLIAM MORRIS
Ah! what came we forth for to see,
that our hearts are so hot with desire?
Is it enough for our rest,
the sight of this desolate strand,
And the mountain waste voiceless as death
but for winds that may sleep not nor tire?
Why do we long to wend forth
through the length and breadth of a land
Dreadful with grinding of ice
and record of scarce hidden fire,
But that there 'mid the gray grassy dales
sore scarred by the ruining streams
Lives the tale of the Northland of old
and the undying glory of dreams?
O land, as some cave by the sea
where the treasures of old have been laid,
The sword it may be of a king
whose name was the turning of fight;
Or the staff of some wise of the world
that many things made and unmade;
Or the ring of a woman, maybe,
whose woe is grown wealth and delight:
No wheat and no wine grows above it,
no orchard for blossom and shade;
The few ships that sail by its blackness
but deem it the mouth of a grave;
Yet sure when the world shall awaken,
this too shall be mighty to save.
Or rather, O land, if a marvel
it seemeth that men ever sought
Thy wastes for a field and a garden
fulfilled of all wonder and doubt,
And feasted amidst of the winter
when the fight of the year had been fought,
Whose plunder all gathered together
was little to babble about,
Cry aloud from thy wastes, O thou land,
"Not for this nor for that was I wrought.
Amid waning of realms and of riches
and death of things worshiped and sure.
I abide here the spouse of a God,
and I made and I make and endure. "
## p. 10349 (#173) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10349
O Queen of the grief without knowledge,
of the courage that may not avail,
Of the longing that may not attain,
of the love that shall never forget,
More joy than the gladness of laughter
thy voice hath amidst of its wail;
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled
amidst of thy blindness is set;
More glorious than gaining of all
thine unfaltering hand that shall fail:
For what is the mark on thy brow
but the brand that thy Brynhild doth bear?
Lone once, and loved and undone
by a love that no ages outwear.
Ah! when thy Balder comes back
And bears from the heart of the sun
Peace and the healing of pain,
and the wisdom that waiteth no more;
And the lilies are laid on thy brow
'mid the crown of the deeds thou hast done;
And the roses spring up by thy feet
that the rocks of the wilderness wore:
Ah! when thy Balder comes back
and we gather the gains he hath won,
Shall we not linger a little
to talk of thy sweetness of old,
Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail
whence the Gods stood aloof to behold?
INTRODUCTION TO THE EARTHLY PARADISE'
F HEAVEN or hell I have no power to sing;
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
OⓇ
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.
But rather, when aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die,-
## p. 10350 (#174) ##########################################
10350
WILLIAM MORRIS
Remember me a little then, I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;
So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,
Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an idle day.
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
Folks say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines arow,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day.
So with this Earthly Paradise it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day.
FROM L'ENVOI OF THE EARTHLY PARADISE'
ERE are we for the last time face to face,
H
Thou and I, Book, before I bid thee speed
Upon thy perilous journey to that place
For which I have done on thee pilgrim's weed,
Striving to get thee all things for thy need.
Though what harm if thou die upon the way,
Thou idle singer of an empty day?
## p. 10351 (#175) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10351
But though this land desired thou never reach,
Yet folk who know it mayst thou meet or death;
Therefore a word unto thee would I teach
To answer these, who, noting thy weak breath,
Thy wandering eyes, thy heart of little faith,
May make thy fond desire a sport and play,
Mocking the singer of an empty day.
That land's name, say'st thou? and the road thereto ?
Nay, Book, thou mockest, saying thou know'st it not;
Surely no book of verse I ever knew
But ever was the heart within him hot
To gain the Land of Matters Unforgot:
There, now we both laugh-as the whole world may,
At us poor singers of an empty day.
Nay, let it pass, and hearken! Hast thou heard
That therein I believe I have a friend,
Of whom for love I may not be afeard?
It is to him indeed I bid thee wend;
Yea, he perchance may meet thee ere thou end,
Dying so far off from the hedge of bay,
Thou idle singer of an empty day!
Well, think of him, I bid thee, on the road,
And if it hap that midst of thy defeat,
Fainting beneath thy follies' heavy load,
My Master, GEOFFREY CHAUCER, thou do meet,
Then shalt thou win a space of rest full sweet;
Then be thou bold, and speak the words I say,
The idle singer of an empty day! .
·
Fearest thou, Book, what answer thou may'st gain,
Lest he should scorn thee, and thereof thou die ?
Nay, it shall not be. -Thou may'st toil in vain,
And never draw the House of Fame anigh;
Yet he and his shall know whereof we cry,-
Shall call it not ill done to strive to lay
The ghosts that crowd about life's empty day
Then let the others go! and if indeed
In some old garden thou and I have wrought,
And made fresh flowers spring up from hoarded seed,
And fragrance of old days and deeds have brought
Back to folk weary,- all was not for naught.
No little part it was for me to play-
The idle singer of an empty day.
## p. 10352 (#176) ##########################################
10352
WILLIAM MORRIS
L
THE BLUE CLOSET
THE DAMOZELS
ADY ALICE, Lady Louise,
Between the wash of the tumbling seas
We are ready to sing, if so ye please;
So lay your long hands on the keys:
Sing, "Laudate pueri. "
And ever the great bell overhead
Boomed in the wind a knell for the dead,-
Though no one tolled it, a knell for the dead.
LADY LOUISE
Sister, let the measure swell
Not too loud; for you sing not well
If you drown the faint boom of the bell:
He is weary, so am I.
And ever the chevron overhead
Flapped on the banner of the dead.
(Was he asleep, or was he dead? )
LADY ALICE
Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen,
Two damozels wearing purple and green,
Four lone ladies dwelling here
From day to day and year to year;
And there is none to let us go,-
To break the locks of the doors below,
Or shovel away the heaped-up snow;
And when we die, no man will know
That we are dead: but they give us leave,
Once every year on Christmas Eve,
To sing in the Closet Blue one song;
And we should be so long, so long,
If we dared, in singing: for dream on dream,
They float on in a happy stream;
Float from the gold strings, float from the keys,
Float from the opened lips of Louise:
But alas! the sea-salt oozes through
The chinks of the tiles of the Closet Blue;
And ever the great bell overhead
Booms in the wind a knell for the dead,-
The wind plays on it a knell for the dead.
## p. 10353 (#177) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10353
[They sing all together. ]
How long ago was it, how long ago,
He came to this tower with hands full of snow?
"Kneel down, O love Louise, kneel down," he said,
And sprinkled the dusty snow over my head.
He watched the snow melting,—it ran through my hair,
Ran over my shoulders, white shoulders and bare.
"I cannot weep for thee, poor love Louise,
For my tears are all hidden deep under the seas:
"In a gold and blue casket she keeps all my tears,
But my eyes are no longer blue as in old years;
"Yea, they grow gray with time, grow small and dry:
I am so feeble now, would I might die. "
And in truth the great bell overhead
Left off his pealing for the dead,-
Perchance because the wind was dead.
Will he come back again, or is he dead?
Oh, is he sleeping, my scarf round his head?
Or did they strangle him as he lay there,
With the long scarlet scarf I used to wear?
Only I pray thee, Lord, let him come here!
Both his soul and his body to me are most dear.
Dear Lord, that loves me, I wait to receive
Either body or spirit this wild Christmas Eve.
XVIII-648
What matter that his cheeks were pale,
His kind kissed lips all gray?
"O love Louise, have you waited long? "
"O my lord Arthur, yea. "
Through the floor shot up a lily red,
With a patch of earth from the land of the dead,—
For he was strong in the land of the dead.
What if his hair that brushed her cheek
Was stiff with frozen rime?
His eyes were grown quite blue again,
As in the happy time.
## p. 10354 (#178) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10354
"O love Louise, this is the key
Of the happy golden land! "
"O sisters, cross the bridge with me,-
My eyes are full of sand.
What matter that I cannot see,
If he take me by the hand? »
And ever the great bell overhead
And the tumbling seas mourned for the dead;
For their song ceased, and they were dead.
THE DAY IS COMING
OME hither lads and hearken,
for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming,
when all shall be better than well.
COME
And the tale shall be told of a country,
a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England
in the days that are going to be.
There more than one in a thousand,
in the days that are yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow,
some joy of the ancient home.
For then-laugh not, but listen
to this strange tale of mine-
All folk that are in England
shall be better lodged than swine.
Then a man shall work and bethink him,
and rejoice in the deeds of his hand;
Nor yet come home in the even
too faint and weary to stand.
Men in that time a-coming
shall work and have no fear
For to-morrow's lack of earning,
and the hunger-wolf anear.
I tell you this for a wonder,
that no man then shall be glad
## p. 10355 (#179) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10355
Of his fellow's fall and mishap,
to snatch at the work he had.
For that which the worker winneth
shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing
by him that sowed no seed.
Oh, strange new wonderful justice!
But for whom shall we gather the gain?
For ourselves and for each of our fellows,
and no hand shall labor in vain.
Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours,
and no more shall any man crave
For riches that serve for nothing
but to fetter a friend for a slave.
And what wealth then shall be left us,
when none shall gather gold
To buy his friend in the market,
and pinch and pine the sold?
Nay, what save the lovely city,
and the little house on the hill,
And the wastes and the woodland beauty,
and the happy fields we till;
And the homes of ancient stories,
the tombs of the mighty dead;
And the wise men seeking out marvels,
and the poet's teeming head;
And the painter's hand of wonder,
and the marvelous fiddle-bow,
And the banded choirs of music:
all those that do and know.
For all these shall be ours and all men's;
nor shall any lack a share
Of the toil and the gain of living,
in the days when the world grows fair.
Ah! such are the days that shall be!
But what are the deeds of to-day,
In the days of the years we dwell in,
that wear our lives away?
## p. 10356 (#180) ##########################################
10356
WILLIAM MORRIS
Why, then, and for what are we waiting?
There are three words to speak:
We will it, and what is the foeman
but the dream-strong wakened and weak?
Oh, why and for what are we waiting,
while our brothers droop and die,
And on every wind of the heavens
a wasted life goes by?
How long shall they reproach us,
where crowd on crowd they dwell,-
Poor ghosts of the wicked city,
the gold-crushed hungry hell?
Through squalid life they labored,
in sordid grief they died. -
Those sons of a mighty mother,
those props of England's pride.
They are gone; there is none can undo it,
nor save our souls from the curse:
But many a million cometh,
and shall they be better or worse?
It is we must answer and hasten,
and open wide the door
For the rich man's hurrying terror,
and the slow-foot hope of the poor.
Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched,
and their unlearned discontent,—
We must give it voice and wisdom
till the waiting-tide be spent.
Come then, since all things call us,
the living and the dead,
And o'er the weltering tangle
a glimmering light is shed.
Come then, let us cast off fooling,
and put by ease and rest,
For the Cause alone is worthy
till the good days bring the best.
Come, join in the only battle
wherein no man can fail,
## p. 10357 (#181) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10357
Where whoso fadeth and dieth,
yet his deed shall still prevail.
S
Ah! come, cast off all fooling,
for this, at least, we know:
That the dawn and the day is coming,
and forth the banners go.
KIARTAN BIDS FAREWELL TO GUDRUN
From The Lovers of Gudrun '
O PASSED away
Yule-tide at Herdholt, cold day following day,
Till spring was gone, and Gudrun had not failed
To win both many days where joy prevailed,
And many a pang of fear; till so it fell
That in the summer whereof now we tell,
Upon a day in blithe mood Kiartan came
To Bathstead not as one who looks for blame,
And Bodli with him, sad-eyed, silent, dull,
Noted of Gudrun, who no less was full
Of merry talk,-yea, more than her wont was.
But as the hours toward eventide did pass,
Said Kiartan:
"Love, make we the most of bliss,
For though, indeed, not the last day this is
Whereon we twain shall meet in such a wise,
Yet shalt thou see me soon in fighting guise,
And hear the horns blow up our Loth to go;
For in White-River- »
"Is it even so,"
She broke in, "that these feet abide behind?
Men call me hard, but thou hast known me kind;
Men call me fair-my body give I thee;
Men call me dainty- let the rough salt sea
Deal with me as it will, so thou be near!
Let me share glory with thee, and take fear
That thy heart throws aside! "
Hand joined to hand,
As one who prays, and trembling, did she stand
With parted lips, and pale and weary-faced.
But up and down the hall-floor Bodli paced
## p. 10358 (#182) ##########################################
10358
WILLIAM MORRIS
With clanking sword, and brows set in a frown,
And scarce less pale than she. The sun low down
Shone through the narrow windows of the hall,
And on the gold upon her dress did fall,
And gilt her slim clasped hands.
There Kiartan stood
Gazing upon her in strange wavering mood,
Now longing sore to clasp her to his heart,
And pray her, too, that they might ne'er depart,
Now well-nigh ready to say such a word
As cutteth love across as with a sword;
So fought love in him with the craving vain
The love of all the wondering world to gain,
Though such he named it not. And so at last
His eyes upon the pavement did he cast,
And knit his brow as though some word to say:
Then fell her outstretched hands; she cried,
“Nay, nay!
Thou need'st not speak: I will not ask thee twice
To take a gift, a good gift, and be wise;
I know my heart, thou know'st it not: farewell,-
Maybe that other tales the Skalds shall tell
Than of thy great deeds. "
Still her face was pale,
As with a sound betwixt a sigh and wail
She brushed by Bodli, who aghast did stand
With open mouth and vainly stretched-out hand;
But Kiartan followed her a step or two,
Then stayed, bewildered by his sudden woe;
But even therewith, as nigh the door she was,
She turned back suddenly, and straight did pass,
Trembling all over, to his side, and said
With streaming eyes:-
"Let not my words be weighed
As man's words are! O fair love, go forth
And come thou back again,-made no more worth
Unto this heart, but worthier it may be
run
To the dull world, thy worth that cannot see.
Go forth, and let the rumor of thee ru
Through every land that is beneath the sun;
For know I not, indeed, that everything
Thou winnest at the hands of lord or king,
Is surely mine, as thou art mine at last ? »
Then round about his neck her arms she cast,
## p. 10359 (#183) ##########################################
WILLIAM MORRIS
10359
$
And wept right sore: and, touched with love and shame,
Must Kiartan offer to leave hope of fame,
And noble life; but 'midst her tears she smiled,—
"Go forth, my love, and be thou not beguiled
By woman's tears, I spake but as a fool;
We of the north wrap not our men in wool,
Lest they should die at last: nay, be not moved
To think that thou a faint-heart fool hast loved! "
---
For now his tears fell too; he said, "My sweet,
Ere the ship sails we yet again shall meet
To say farewell, a little while; and then,
When I come back to hold my place 'mid men,
With honor won for thee-how fair it is
To think on now, the sweetness and the bliss! "
Some little words she said no pen can write,
Upon his face she laid her fingers white,
And 'midst of kisses with his hair did play;
Then, smiling through her tears, she went away.
Nor heeded Bodli aught.
Men say the twain,
Kiartan and Gudrun, never met again
In loving wise; that each to each no more
Their eyes looked kind on this side death's dark shore;
That 'midst their tangled life they must forget,
Till they were dead, that ere their lips had met.
## p. 10360 (#184) ##########################################
10360
MOSCHUS
(THIRD CENTURY B. C.
)
F MOSCHUS it is commonly said that he was the friend or dis-
ciple of the Alexandrian grammarian, Aristarchus. In this
fact we may possibly find the keynote of his poetic manner,
and a just estimate of his value. For his poems are completely
wrought-out work, marked now and then by a rare felicity of expres-
sion. They are what would naturally be produced by the educated
man of poetic feeling, whose eye and ear had been trained by the
rules and literary conventions of the greatest critic of his time.
The writer of the 'Elegy on Bion' asserts that he was Bion's
pupil; and that while the master left his goods to others, his song he
left to him. This relationship would make Moschus- to whom the
elegy is commonly assigned — a younger contemporary of both The-
ocritus and Bion, who flourished about B. C. 275. Although a native
of Syracuse, he is said to have lived much at Alexandria.
To him is also commonly ascribed the authorship of 'Love the
Runaway,' a poem of exquisite grace after the manner of Anacreon,
in which Cypris sketches her runaway boy, and offers a reward to
the one who will bring him back. Three other idyls and a few slight
pieces are also supposed to be his.
But the fame of Moschus rests upon the lament for Bion. It is
a poem of only one hundred and thirty-three lines, but withal most
elaborate, delicate, clear, and luxuriant in its imagery. All nature
laments Bion's death; and this very exuberance and poetic excess
have led critics to think the poem forced and affected, as Dr. John-
son pronounced Lycidas' to be. But considering that this very
element of appeal to nature is in the heart of us all at times of
great grief, when the imagination is awakened and the judgment
often passive,- with this consideration, such elegies are more natural,
direct, and simple. Sorrow, which acts physiologically as a stimulus
to nerve action, brings out the inconsistency of human nature, and
shows that inconsistency to be real consistency. We must abandon
ourselves to the writer's attitude of mind in order to apprehend it.
It is in the ebb of grief that the poetic impulse comes, not in its
full tide and freshness. "To publish a sorrow," says Lowell,
"is in some sort to advertise its unreality; for I have observed in
my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively
. . .
## p. 10361 (#185) ##########################################
MOSCHUS
10361
hides its face with its hands and is silent. Depend upon it,
Petrarch [loved] his sonnets better than Laura, who was indeed but
his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard that
muffled rattle of the clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss,
you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies.
hateful; "—if not hateful, certainly inadequate for expression of the
deeper grief of life.
The undoubted model for this idyl of Moschus was Bion's lament
for Adonis, which is quoted under the article on Bion. Like that
exquisite poem, Moschus's threnody is an outburst over the eternal
mystery of death. Death means to us the loss of the departed one
from our affectionate association. And above all, with true Greek
feeling there is felt the loss to him of all that sweet life held,-the
piping by the waters, the care of his flock, the soft airs of bucolic
Sicily. The song is a touching lamentation upon the giving up of
joyous life, and going down to "the senseless earth" and the shades
of Orcus.
THE LAMENTATION FOR BION
MOA
Μ
The remains of Moschus have been edited by H. L. Ahrens in
'Reliquiæ Bucolicorum Græcorum' (1861), and also by Brunck, Bois-
sonade, and others. They have been turned into English by Fawkes
(Chalmers's English Poets) and also by Messrs. Polwhele, Chapman,
and Banks.
•
OAN with me, moan, ye woods and Dorian waters,
And weep, ye rivers, the delightful Bion;
And more than ever now, O hyacinth, show
Your written sorrows: the sweet singer's dead.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,
Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,
Bion the shepherd's dead; and that with him
Melody's dead, and gone the Dorian song.
Ye plants, now stand in tears; murmur, ye graves;
Ye flowers, sigh forth your odors with sad buds;
Flush deep, ye roses and anemones;
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Weep on the waters, ye Strymonian swans,
And utter forth a melancholy song,
Tender as his whose voice was like your own;
And say to the Eagrian girls, and say
## p. 10362 (#186) ##########################################
10362
MOSCHUS
To all the nymphs haunting in Bistany,
The Doric Orpheus is departed from us.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
No longer pipes he to the charmèd herds,
No longer sits under the lonely oaks
And sings; but to the ears of Pluto now
Tunes his Lethean verse: and so the hills
Are voiceless; and the cows that follow still
Beside the bulls, low and will not be fed.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Apollo, Bion, wept thy sudden fate;
The Satyrs too, and the Priapuses
Dark-veiled, and for that song of thine the Pans
Groaned; and the fountain-nymphs within the woods
Mourned for thee, melting into tearful waters;
Echo too mourned among the rocks that she
Must hush, and imitate thy lips no longer;
Trees and the flowers put off their loveliness;
Milk flows not as 'twas used; and in the hive
The honey molders,- for there is no need,
Now that thy honey's gone, to look for more.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Not so the dolphins mourned by the salt sea,
Not so the nightingale among the rocks,
Not so the swallow over the far downs,
Not so Ceyx called for his Halcyone,
Not so in the eastern valleys Memnon's bird
Screamed o'er his sepulchre for the Morning's son,
As all have mourned for the departed Bion.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales and swallows, every one
Whom he once charmed and taught to sing at will,
Plain to each other midst the green tree boughs,
With other birds o'erhead. Mourn too, ye doves.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Who now shall play thy pipe, O most desired one!
Who lay his lip against thy reeds? who dare it?
For still they breathe of thee and of thy mouth,
And Echo comes to seek her voices there.
Pan's be they, and even he shall fear perhaps
To sound them, lest he be not first hereafter.
## p. 10363 (#187) ##########################################
MOSCHUS
10363
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
And Galatea weeps, who loved to hear thee,
Sitting beside thee on the calm sea-shore:
For thou didst play far better than the Cyclops,
And him the fair one shunned: but thee, but thee,
She used to look at sweetly from the water;
But now, forgetful of the deep, she sits
On the lone sands, and feeds thy herd for thee.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
The Muses' gifts all died with thee, O shepherd:
Men's admiration, and sweet woman's kisses.
The Loves about thy sepulchre weep sadly;
For Venus loved thee, much more than the kiss
With which of late she kissed Adonis, dying.
Thou too, O Meles, sweetest voiced of rivers,
Thou too hast undergone a second grief;
For Homer first, that sweet mouth of Calliope,
Was taken from hee; and they say thou mourned'st
For thy great son with many-sobbing streams,
Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice.
And now again thou weepest for a son,
Melting away in misery. Both of them
Were favorites of the fountain-nymphs: one drank
The Pegasean fount, and one his cup
Filled out of Arethuse; the former sang
The bright Tyndarid lass, and the great son
Of Thetis, and Atrides Menelaus;
But he, the other, not of wars or tears
Told us, but intermixed the pipe he played
With songs of herds, and as he sung he fed them;
And he made pipes, and milked the gentle heifer,
And taught us how to kiss, and cherished love
Within his bosom, and was worthy of Venus.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Every renownèd city and every town
Mourns for thee, Bion: Ascra weeps thee more
Than her own Hesiod; the Boeotian woods
Ask not for Pindar so, nor patriot Lesbos
For her Alcæus; nor the Ægean isle
Her poet; nor does Paros so wish back
Archilochus; and Mitylene now,
Instead of Sappho's verses, rings with thine.
All the sweet pastoral poets weep for thee :-
-
## p. 10364 (#188) ##########################################
10364
MOSCHUS
Sicelidas the Samian; Lycidas,
Who used to look so happy; and at Cos,
Philetas; and at Syracuse, Theocritus,
All in their several dialects; and I,
I too, no stranger to the pastoral song,
Sing thee a dirge Ausonian, such as thou
Taughtest thy scholars, honoring us as all
Heirs of the Dorian Muse. Thou didst bequeath
Thy store to others, but to me thy song.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Alas! when mallows in the garden die,
Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,
They live again, and flower another year;
But we, how great soe'er, or strong, or wise,
When once we die, sleep in the senseless earth
A long, an endless, unawakable sleep.
Thou too in earth must be laid silently;
But the nymphs please to let the frog sing on;
Nor envy I, for what he sings is worthless.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
There came, O Bion, poison to thy mouth;
Thou didst feel poison; how could it approach
Those lips of thine, and not be turned to sweet!
Who could be so delightless as to mix it,
Or bid be mixed, and turn him from thy song!
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
But justice reaches all; and thus, meanwhile,
I weep thy fate. And would I could descend
Like Orpheus to the shades, or like Ulysses,
Or Hercules before him: I would go
To Pluto's house, and see if you sang there,
And hark to what you sang. Play to Proserpina
Something Sicilian, some delightful pastoral;
For she once played on the Sicilian shores,
The shores of Etna, and sang Dorian songs,
And so thou wouldst be honored; and as Orpheus
For his sweet harping had his love again,
She would restore thee to our mountains, Bion.
Oh, had I but the power, I, I would do it!
Translation of Leigh Hunt.
-
## p. 10365 (#189) ##########################################
10365
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
(1797-1835)
HE short life of William Motherwell was involved in much
that was uncongenial to his nature and obstructive to his
talent; else his sensibility and imagination, and his lyric
gift, might have found fuller expression. Several of his Scotch bal-
lads are unexcelled for sweetness and pathos. The reflective poems
show exquisite delicacy of feeling. The Battle Flag of Sigurd,'
'The Sword Chant of Thorstein Raudi,' ring with manliness. The
collection as a whole shows a wide range
of poetic power.
His other noteworthy work, Minstrelsy,
Ancient and Modern' (1827), displays
taste and critical ability. The essay upon
ancient minstrelsy with which he prefaced
the collection attracted the admiring atten-
tion of Sir Walter Scott, and remains an
authority upon the subject.
But the gifted Scotchman, who was born
in Glasgow in 1797, hid under his outward
reserve a sensitively artistic nature, that
suffered from contact with the practicalities
of life. Much of his childhood was passed
in Edinburgh, where he spent happy days.
roaming about the old town; and where, in Mr. Lennie's private
school, he met the pretty Jeanie Morrison of his famous ballad. He
was a dreamy, unstudious lad, with little taste for science or the
classics, although passionately fond of imaginative literature.
At fifteen he was placed to study law in the office of the sheriff-
clerk of Paisley, where he was made in time deputy sheriff-clerk,
and principal clerk of the county of Renfrew. But he was always
inclined toward a literary career; and beginning very young to
contribute poems and sketches to various periodicals, he gradually
drifted into journalism, with which he was still connected at the time
of his death in 1835. A man peculiarly alive to outside impressions,
he was thus for years subjected to the unpoetic details of editorial
work; and this, acting upon his constitutional inertia, made the poetic
creation of which he was capable especially difficult.
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
## p. 10366 (#190) ##########################################
10366
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
WHEN I BENEATH THE cold, reD EARTH AM SLEEPING
HEN I beneath the cold, red earth am sleeping,
Life's fever o'er,
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I'm no more?
WHEN
Will there be any heart still memory keeping
Of heretofore?
When the great winds, through leafless forests rushing,
Like full hearts break;
When the swollen streams, o'er crag and gully gushing,
Sad music make,-
Will there be one, whose heart despair is crushing,
Mourn for my sake?
When the bright sun upon that spot is shining
With purest ray,
And the small flowers, their buds and blossoms twining
Burst through that clay,-
Will there be one still on that spot repining
Lost hopes all day?
When the night shadows, with the ample sweeping
Of her dark pall,
The world and all its manifold creation sleeping,
The great and small,-
Will there be one, even at that dread hour, weeping
For me- - for all?
When no star twinkles with its eye of glory,
On that low mound,
And wintry storms have with their ruins hoary
Its loneness crowned,-
Will there be then one versed in misery's story
Pacing it round ?
It may be so,- but this is selfish sorrow
To ask such meed;
A weakness and a wickedness to borrow
From hearts that bleed,
The wailings of to-day, for what to-morrow
Shall never need.
――――
Lay me then gently in my narrow dwelling,
Thou gentle heart:
## p. 10367 (#191) ##########################################
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10367
And though thy bosom should with grief be swelling,
Let no tear start;
It were in vain,- for Time hath long been knelling,
"Sad one, depart! "
JEANIE MORRISON
I
'VE wandered east, I've wandered west,
Through mony a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The luve o' life's young day!
The fire that's blawn on Beltane e'en
May weel be black gin Yule;
But blacker fa' awaits the heart
Where first fond luve grows cule.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
The thochts o' bygane years
Still fling their shadows ower my path,
And blind my een wi' tears:
They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears,
And sair and sick I pine,
As memory idly summons up
The blithe blinks o' langsyne.
'Twas then we luvit ilk ither weel,
'Twas then we twa did part;
Sweet time-sad time! twa bairns at scule-
Twa bairns and but ae heart!
'Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink,
To leir ilk ither lear;
And tones and looks and smiles were shed,
Remembered evermair.
I wonder, Jennie, aften yet,
When sitting on that bink,
Cheek touchin' cheek, loof locked in loof,
What our wee heads could think.
When baith bent doun ower ae braid page,
Wi' ae buik on our knee,
Thy lips were on thy lesson, but
My lesson was in thee.
Oh, mind ye how we hung our heads.
How cheeks brent red wi' shame,
## p. 10368 (#192) ##########################################
10368
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
Whene'er the scule-weans laughin' said
We cleeked thegither hame?
And mind ye o' the Saturdays,
(The scule then skail't at noon,)
When we ran off to speel the braes,-
The broomy braes o' June?
My head rins round and round about,
My heart flows like a sea,
As ane by ane the thochts rush back
O' scule-time and o' thee.
O mornin' life! O mornin' luve!
O lichtsome days and lang,
When hinnied hopes around our hearts
Like simmer blossoms sprang!
Oh, mind ye, luve, how aft we left
The deavin' dinsome toun,
To wander by the green burnside,
And hear its waters croon?
The simmer leaves hung ower our heads,
The flowers burst round our feet,
And in the gloamin' o' the wood
The throssil whusslit sweet;
The throssil whusslit in the wood,
The burn sang to the trees,
And we with Nature's heart in tune,
Concerted harmonies;
And on the knowe abune the burn,
For hours thegither sat
In the silentness o' joy, till baith
Wi' very gladness grat.
Ay, ay, dear Jeanie Morrison,
Tears trinkled doun your cheek
Like dew-beads on a rose, yet nane
Had ony power to speak!
That was a time, a blessed time,
When hearts were fresh and young
When freely gushed all feelings forth,
Unsyllabled, unsung!
I marvel, Jeanie Morrison,
Gin I hae been to thee
## p. 10369 (#193) ##########################################
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10369
XVIII-649
As closely twined wi' earliest thochts,
As ye hae been to me?
Oh, tell me gin their music fills
Thine ear as it does mine!
Oh, say gin e'er your heart grows grit
Wi' dreamings o' langsyne?
I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
I've borne a weary lot;
But in my wanderings, far or near,
Ye never were forgot.
The fount that first burst frae this heart
Still travels on its way;
And channels deeper, as it rins,
The luve o' life's young day.
O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,
Since we were sindered young,
I've never seen your face, nor heard
The music o' your tongue;
But I could hug all wretchedness,
And happy could I dee,
Did I but ken your heart still dreamed
O' bygane days and me!
MY HEID IS LIKE TO REND, WILLIE
MY
Y HEID is like to rend, Willie,
My heart is like to break;
I'm wearin' aff my feet, Willie
I'm dyin' for your sake!
Oh, lay your cheek to mine, Willie,
Your hand on my briest-bane;
Oh, say ye'll think on me, Willie,
When I am deid and gane!
It's vain to comfort me, Willie,-
Sair grief maun ha'e its will;
But let me rest upon your briest,
To sab and greet my fill.
Let me sit on your knee, Willie,
Let me shed by your hair,
And look into the face, Willie,
I never sall see mair!
## p. 10370 (#194) ##########################################
10370
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
I'm sittin' on your knee, Willie,
For the last time in my life,—
A puir heart-broken thing, Willie,
A mither, yet nae wife.
Ay, press your hand upon my heart,
And press it mair and mair,
Or it will burst the silken twine,
Sae strang is its despair.
Oh, wae's me for the hour, Willie,
When we thegither met;
Oh, wae's me for the time, Willie,
That our first tryst was set!
Oh, wae's me for the loanin' green
Where we were wont to gae,-
And wae's me for the destinie
That gart me luve thee sae!
―――
Oh, dinna mind my words, Willie,
I downa seek to blame,—
But oh, it's hard to live, Willie,
And dree a warld's shame!
Het tears are hailin' ower your cheek,
And hailin' ower your chin:
Why weep ye sae for worthlessness,
For sorrow, and for sin ?
I'm weary o' this warld, Willie,
And sick wi' a' I see;
I canna live as I hae lived,
Or be as I should be.
But fauld unto your heart, Willie,
The heart that still is thine,
And kiss ance mair the white, white cheek,
Ye said was red langsyne.
A stoun' gaes through my heid, Willie,
A sair stoun' through my heart;
Oh, haud me up and let me kiss
Thy brow ere we twa pairt.
Anither, and anither yet!
How fast my life-strings break!
Fareweel! fareweel! through yon kirk-yard
Step lichtly for my sake!
## p. 10371 (#195) ##########################################
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
10371
The lav'rock in the lift, Willie,
That lilts far ower our heid,
Will sing the morn as merrilie
Abune the clay-cauld deid;
And this green turf we're sittin' on,
Wi' dew-draps' shimmerin' sheen,
Will hap the heart that luvit thee
As warld has seldom seen.
But oh, remember me, Willie,
On land where'er ye be,-
And oh, think on the leal, leal heart,
That ne'er luvit ane but thee!
And oh, think on the cauld, cauld mools
That file my yellow hair,-
That kiss the cheek and kiss the chin
Ye never sall kiss mair!
MAY MORN SONG
THE
HE grass is wet with shining dews,
Their silver bells hang on each tree,
While opening flower and bursting bud
Breathe incense forth unceasingly;
The mavis pipes in greenwood shaw,
The throstle glads the spreading thorn,
And cheerily the blithesome lark
Salutes the rosy face of morn.
'Tis early prime:
And hark! hark! hark!
His merry chime
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! he heralds in
The jolly sun with matin hymn.
Come, come, my love! and May-dews shake
In pailfuls from each drooping bough;
They'll give fresh lustre to the bloom
That breaks upon thy young cheek now.
O'er hill and dale, o'er waste and wood,
Aurora's smiles are streaming free;
With earth it seems brave holiday,
In heaven it looks high jubilee.
## p. 10372 (#196) ##########################################
10372
WILLIAM MOTHERWELL
And it is right,
For mark, love, mark!
How bathed in light
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! he upward flies,
Like holy thoughts to cloudless skies.
They lack all heart who cannot feel
The voice of heaven within them thrill,
In summer morn, when mounting high
This merry minstrel sings his fill.
Now let us seek yon bosky dell
Where brightest wild-flowers choose to be,
And where its clear stream murmurs on,
Meet type of our love's purity.
No witness there,
And o'er us, hark!
High in the air
Chirrups the lark;
Chirrup! chirrup! away soars he,
Bearing to heaven my vows to thee!
## p. 10372 (#197) ##########################################
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