Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

  Some vestige of her radiant way:

  But soon those torturing struggles end;

  For where the poplar silver-gray

  And dark associate cedar blend

  Their hospitable shade, before

  One human dwelling’s well-known door,

  Old Pheidon sits, and by his side

  His only child, his age’s pride,

  Herself, Anthemion’s destined bride.

  She hears his coming tread. She flies

  To meet him. Health is on her cheeks,

  And pleasure sparkles in her eyes,

  And their soft light a welcome speaks

  More eloquent than words. Oh, joy!

  The maid he left so fast consuming,

  Whom death, impatient to destroy,

  Had marked his prey, now rosy-blooming,

  And beaming like the morning star

  With loveliness and love, has flown

  To welcome him: his cares fly far,

  Like clouds when storms are overblown;

  For where such perfect transports reign

  Even memory has no place for pain.

  The poet’s task were passing sweet,

  If, when he tells how lovers meet,

  One half the flow of joy, that flings

  Its magic on that blissful hour,

  Could touch, with sympathetic power,

  His lyre’s accordant strings.

  It may not be. The lyre is mute,

  When venturous minstrelsy would suit

  Its numbers to so dear a theme:

  But many a gentle maid, I deem,

  Whose heart has known and felt the like,

  Can hear, in fancy’s kinder dream,

  The chords I dare not strike.

  They spread a banquet in the shade

  Of those old trees. The friendly board

  Calliroë’s beauteous hands arrayed,

  With self-requiting toil, and poured

  In fair-carved bowl the sparkling wine.

  In order due Anthemion made

  Libation, to Olympian Jove,

  Arcadian Pan, and Thespian Love,

  And Bacchus, giver of the vine.

  The generous draught dispelled the sense

  Of weariness. His limbs were light:

  His heart was free: Love banished thence

  All forms but one most dear, most bright:

  And ever with insatiate sight

  He gazed upon the maid, and listened,

  Absorbed in ever new delight

  To that dear voice, whose balmy sighing

  To his full joy blest response gave,

  like music doubly-sweet replying

  From twilight echo’s sylvan cave;

  And her mild eyes with soft rays glistened,

  Imparting and reflecting pleasure;

  For this is Love’s terrestrial treasure,

  That in participation lives,

  And evermore, the more it gives,

  Itself abounds in fuller measure.

  Old Pheidon felt his heart expand

  With joy that from their joy had birth,

  And said: “Anthemion! Love’s own hand

  Is here, and mighty on the earth

  Is he, the primogenial power,

  Whose sacred grove and antique fane

  Thy prompted footsteps, not in vain,

  Have sought; for, on the day and hour

  Of his incipient rite, most strange

  And sudden was Calliroë’s change.

  The sickness under which she bowed,

  Swiftly, as though it ne’er had been,

  Passed, like the shadow of a cloud

  From. April’s hills of green.

  And bliss once more is yours: and mine

  In seeing yours, and more than this;

  For ever, in our children’s bliss,

  The sun of our past youth doth shine

  Upon our age anew. Divine

  No less than our own Pan must be

  To us Love’s bounteous deity;

  And round our old and hallowed pine

  The myrtle and the rose must twine,

  Memorial of the Thespian shrine.” —

  ’Twas strange indeed, Anthemion thought,

  That, in the hour when omens dread

  Most tortured him, such change was wrought;

  But love and hope their lustre shed

  On all his visions now, and led

  His memory from the mystic train

  Of fears which that strange damsel wove

  Around him in the Thespian fane

  And in the Heliconian grove.

  Eve came, and twilight’s balmy hour:

  Alone, beneath the cedar bower,

  The lovers sate, in converse dear

  Betracing many a backward year,

  Their infant sports in field and grove,

  Their mutual tasks, their dawning love,

  Their mingled tears of past distress,

  Now all absorbed in happiness;

  And oft would Fancy intervene

  To throw, on many a pictured scene

  Of life’s untrodden path, such gleams

  Of golden light, such blissful dreams,

  As in young Love’s enraptured eye

  Hope almost made reality.

  So in that dear accustomed shade,

  With Ladon flowing at their feet,

  Together sate the youth and maid,

  In that uncertain shadowy light

  When day and darkness mingling meet.

  Her bright eyes ne’er had seemed so bright,

  Her sweet voice ne’er had seemed so sweet,

  As then they seemed. Upon his neck

  Her head was resting, and her eyes

  Were raised to his, for no disguise

  Her feelings knew; untaught to check,

  As in these days more worldly wise,

  The heart’s best purest sympathies.

  Fond youth! her lips are near to thine:

  The ringlets of her temples twine

  Against thy cheek: oh! more or less

  Than mortal wert thou not to press

  Those ruby lips! Or does it dwell

  Upon thy mind, that fervid spell

  Which Rhododaphne breathed upon

  Thy lips ere while in Helicon?

  Ah! pause, rash boy! bethink thee yet:

  And canst thou then the charm forget?

  Or dost thou scorn its import vain

  As vision of a fevered brain?

  Oh! he has kissed Calliroë’s lips!

  And with the touch the maid grew pale,

  And sudden shade of strange eclipse

  Drew o’er her eyes its dusky veil.

  As droops the meadow-pink its head,

  By the rude scythe in summer’s prime

  Cleft from its parent stem, and spread

  On earth to wither ere its time,

  Even so the flower of Ladon faded,

  Swifter than, when the sun had shaded

  In the young storm his setting ray,

  The western radiance dies away.

  He pressed her heart: no pulse was there.

  Before her lips his hand he placed:

  No breath was in them. Wild despair.

  Came on him, as, with sudden waste,

  When snows dissolve in vernal rain,

  The mountain-torrent on the plain

  Descends; and with that fearful swell

  Of passionate grief, the midnight spell

  Of the Thessalian maid recurred,

  Distinct in every fatal word:

  — “These lips are mine; the spells have won them,

  Which round and round thy soul I twine;

  And be the kiss I print upon them

  Poison to all lips but mine!” —

  — “Oh, thou art dead, my love!” — he cried —

  “Art dead, and I have murdered thee!” —

  He started up in agony.

  The be
auteous maiden from his side

  Sunk down on earth. Like one who slept

  She lay, still, cold, and pale of hue;

  And her long hair all loosely swept

  The thin grass, wet with evening dew.

  He could not weep; but anguish burned

  Within him like consuming flame.

  He shrieked: the distant rocks returned

  The voice of woe. Old Pheidon came

  In terror forth: he saw; and wild

  With misery fell upon his child,

  And cried aloud, and rent his hair.

  Stung by the voice of his despair,

  And by the intolerable thought

  That he, how innocent soe’er,

  Had all this grief and ruin wrought,

  And urged perchance by secret might

  Of magic spells, that drew their chain

  More closely round his phrenzied brain,

  Beneath the swiftly-closing night

  Anthemion sprang away, and fled

  O’er plain and steep, with frantic tread,

  As Passion’s aimless impulse led.

  CANTO V.

  THOUGH Pity’s self has made thy breast

  Its earthly shrine, oh gentle maid!

  Shed not thy tears, where Love’s last rest

  Is sweet beneath the cypress shade;

  Whence never voice of tyrant power,

  Nor trumpet-blast from rending skies,

  Nor winds that howl, nor storms that lower,

  Shall bid the sleeping sufferer rise.

  But mourn for them, who live to keep

  Sad strife with fortune’s tempests rude;

  For them, who live to toil and weep

  In loveless, joyless solitude;

  Whose days consume in hope, that flies

  Like clouds of gold that fading float,

  Still watched with fondlier lingering eyes

  As still more dim and more remote.

  Oh? wisely, truly, sadly sung

  The bard by old Cephisus’ side,

  (While not with sadder, sweeter tongue,

  His own loved nightingale replied:)

  “Man’s happiest lot is NOT TO BE;

  And when we tread life’s thorny steep,

  Most blest are they, who, earliest free,

  Descend to death’s eternal sleep.” —

  Long, wide, and far, the youth has strayed,

  Forlorn, and pale, and wild with woe,

  And found no rest. His loved, lost maid,

  A beauteous, sadly-smiling shade,

  Is ever in his thoughts, and slow

  Roll on the hopeless, aimless hours.

  Sunshine, and grass, and woods, and flowers,

  Rivers, and vales, and glittering homes

  Of busy men, where’er he roams,

  Torment his sense with contrast keen,

  Of that which is, and might have been.

  The mist that on the mountains high

  Its transient wreath light-hovering flings,

  The clouds and changes of the sky,

  The forms of unsubstantial things,

  The voice of the tempestuous gale,

  The rain-swoln torrent’s turbid moan,

  And every sound that seems to wail

  For beauty past and hope o’erthrown,

  Attemper with his wild despair;

  But scarce his restless eye can bear

  The hills, and rocks, and summer streams,

  The things that still are what they were

  When life and love were more than dreams.

  It chanced, along the rugged shore,

  Where giant Pelion’s piny steep

  O’erlooks the wide Ægean deep,

  He shunned the steps of humankind,

  Soothed by the multitudinous roar

  Of ocean, and the ceaseless shock

  Of spray, high-scattering from the rock

  In the wail of the many-wandering wind.

  A crew, on lawless venture bound,

  Such men as roam the seas around,

  Hearts to fear and pity strangers,

  Seeking gold through crimes and dangers,

  Sailing near, the wanderer spied.

  Sudden, through the foaming tide,

  They drove to land, and on the shore

  Springing, they seized the youth, and bore

  To their black ship, and spread again

  Their sails, and ploughed the billowy main.

  Dark Ossa on their watery way

  Looks from his robe of mist; and, gray

  With many a deep and shadowy fold,

  The sacred mount, Olympus old,

  Appears: but where with Therma’s sea

  Penëus mingles tranquilly,

  They anchor with the closing light

  Of day, and through the moonless night

  Propitious to their lawless toil,

  In silent bands they prowl for spoil.

  Ere morning dawns, they crowd on board,

  And to their vessel’s secret hoard

  With many a costly robe they pass,

  And vase of silver, gold, and brass.

  A young maid too their hands have torn

  From her maternal home, to mourn

  Afar, to some rude master sold,

  The crimes and woes that spring from gold.

  — “There sit!” — cried one in rugged tone, —

  “Beside that boy. A well-matched pair

  Ye seem, and will, I doubt not, bear,

  In our good port, a value rare.

  There sit, but not to wail and moan:

  The lyre, which in those fingers fair

  We leave, whose sound through night’s thick shade

  To unwished ears thy haunt bewrayed,

  Strike: for the lyre, by beauty played,

  To glad the hearts of men was made.” —

  The damsel by Anthemion’s side

  Sate down upon the deck. The tide

  Blushed with the deepening light of morn.

  A pitying look the youth forlorn

  Turned on the maiden. Can it be?

  Or does his sense play false? Too well

  He knows that radiant form. ’Tis she,

  The magic maid of Thessaly,

  ’Tis Rhododaphne! By the spell,

  That ever round him dwelt, opprest,

  He bowed his head upon his breast,

  And o’er his eyes his hand he drew,

  That fatal beauty’s sight to shun.

  Now from the orient heaven the sun

  Had clothed the eastward waves with fire:

  Right from the west the fair breeze blew:

  The full sails swelled, and sparkling through

  The sounding sea, the vessel flew:

  With wine and copious cheer, the crew

  Caroused: the damsel o’er the lyre

  Her rapid fingers lightly flung,

  And thus, with feigned obedience, sung.

  — “The Nereid’s home is calm and bright,

  The ocean-depths below,

  Where liquid streams of emerald light

  Through caves of coral flow.

  She has a lyre of silver strings

  Framed on a pearly shell,

  And sweetly to that lyre she sings

  The shipwrecked seaman’s knell.

  “The ocean-snake in sleep she hinds;

  The dolphins round her play:

  His purple conch the Triton winds

  Responsive to the lay:

  Proteus and Phorcys, sea-gods old,

  Watch by her choral cell,

  To hear, on watery echoes rolled,

  The shipwrecked seaman’s knell.”

  — “Cease!” cried the chief, in accents rude —

  “From songs like these mishap may rise.

  Thus far have we our course pursued

  With smiling seas and cloudless skies.

  From wreck and tempest, omens ill,

  Forbear; and
sing, for well I deem

  Those pretty lips possess the skilly

  Some ancient tale of happier theme;

  Some legend of imperial Jove

  In uncouth shapes disguised by love;

  Or Hercules, and his hard toils;

  Or Mercury, friend of craft and spoils;

  Or Jove-born Bacchus, whom we prize

  O’er all the Olympian deities.” —

  He said, and drained the bowl. The crew

  With long coarse laugh applauded. Fast

  With sparkling keel the vessel flew,

  For there was magic in the breeze

  That urged her through the sounding seas.

  By Chanastræum’s point they past,

  Aid Ampelos. Gray Athos, vast

  With woods far-stretching to the sea,

  Was full before them, while the maid

  Again her lyre’s wild strings essayed,

  In notes of bolder melody:

  “Bacchus by the lonely ocean

  Stood in youthful semblance fair:

  Summer winds, with gentle motion,

  Waved his black and curling hair.

  Streaming from his manly shoulders

  Robes of gold and purple dye

  Told of spoil to fierce beholders

  In their black ship sailing by.

  On the vessel’s deck they placed him

  Strongly bound in triple bands;

  But the iron rings that braced him

  Melted, wax-like from his hands.

  Then the pilot spake in terror:

  ““Tis a god in mortal form!

  Seek the land; repair your error

  Ere his wrath invoke the storm.’

  “‘Silence!’ cried the frowning master,

  ‘Mind the helm, the breeze is fair:

  Coward! cease to bode disaster:

  Leave to men the captive’s care.’

  While he speaks, and fiercely tightens

  In the full free breeze the sail,

  From the deck wine bubbling lightens,

  Winy fragrance fills the gale.

  Gurgling in ambrosial lustre

  Flows the purple-eddying wine:

  O’er the yard-arms trail and cluster

  Tendrils of the mantling vine:

  Grapes, beneath the broad leaves springing,

  Blushing as in vintage-hours,

  Droop, while round the tall mast clinging

  Ivy twines its buds and flowers,

  Fast with graceful berries blackening: —

  Garlands hang on every oar:

  Then in fear the cordage slackening,

  One and all, they cry, ‘To shore!’

  Bacchus changed his shape, and glaring

  With a lion’s eye-balls wide,

  Roared: the pirate-crew, despairing,

  Plunged amid the foaming tide.

  Through the azure depths they flitted

  Dolphins by transforming fate:

  But the god the pilot pitied,

  Saved, and made him rich and great.”

  The crew laid by their cups and frowned.

  A stem rebuke their leader gave.