The Burden of Itys

    • This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
    • Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
    • Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
    • Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
    • To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there,
    • Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
    • Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take
    • Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
    • Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
    • A lazy pike lies basking in the sun
    • His eyes half-shut,—He is some mitred old
    • Bishop “in partibus!” look at those gaudy scales all
    • green and gold.
    • The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
    • Does well for Palaestrina, one would say
    • The mighty master’s hands were on the keys
    • Of the Maria organ, which they play
    • When early on some sapphire Easter morn
    • In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope
    • is borne
    • From his dark house out to the balcony
    • Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,
    • Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy
    • To toss their silver lances in the air,
    • And stretching out weak hands to East and West
    • In vain sends peace to peaceless lands,
    • to restless nations rest.
    • Is not yon lingering orange afterglow
    • That stays to vex moon more fair than all
    • Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago
    • I knelt before some crimson Cardinal
    • Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,
    • And now- those common poppies in the wheat seem
    • twice as fine.
    • The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous
    • With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring
    • Through this cool evening than the odorous
    • Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,
    • When the gray priest unlocks the curtained shrine,
    • And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn
    • and vine.
    • Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass
    • Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird
    • Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass
    • I see that throbbing throat which once I heard
    • On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,
    • Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis
    • meets the sea.
    • Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves
    • At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,
    • And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves
    • Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe
    • To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait
    • Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across
    • the farmyard gate.
    • And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,
    • And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,
    • And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees
    • That round and round the linden blossoms play;
    • And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,
    • And the green bursting figs that hang upon the
    • red-brick wall.
    • And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring
    • While the last violet loiters by the well,
    • And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing
    • The song of Linus through a sunny dell
    • Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
    • And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance
    • about the wattled fold
    • And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
    • In some Illyrian valley far away,
    • Where canopied on herbs amaracine
    • We too might waste the summer-tranced day
    • Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
    • While far beneath us frets the troubled
    • purple of the sea.
    • But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot
    • Of some long-hidden God should ever tread
    • The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute
    • Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head
    • By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed
    • To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced
    • flock to feed.
    • Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,
    • Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem!
    • Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler
    • Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn
    • These unfamiliar haunts, this English field,
    • For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield,
    • Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose,
    • Which all day long in vales Aeolian
    • A lad might seek in vain for, overgrows
    • Our hedges like a wanton courtesan
    • Unthrifty of her beauty, lilies too
    • Ilissus never mirrored star our streams,
    • and cockles blue
    • Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs
    • For swallows going south, would never spread
    • Their azure tints between the Attic vines;
    • Even that little weed of ragged red,
    • Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady
    • Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy.
    • Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames
    • Which to awake were sweeter ravishment
    • Than ever Syrinx wept for, diadems
    • Of brown be-studded orchids which were meant
    • For Cytheraea’s brows are hidden here
    • Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer
    • There is a tiny yellow daffodil,
    • The butterfly can see it from afar,
    • Although one summer evening’s dew could fill
    • Its little cup twice over ere the star
    • Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold
    • And be no prodigal, each leaf is flecked
    • with spotted gold
    • As if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae
    • Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss
    • The trembling petals, or young Mercury
    • Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis
    • Had with one feather of his pinions
    • Just brushed them!- the slight stem which bears
    • the burdens of its suns
    • Is hardly thicker than the gossamer,
    • Or poor Arachne’s silver tapestry,-
    • Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre
    • Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me
    • It seems to bring diviner memories
    • Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue
    • nymph-haunted seas,
    • Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where
    • On the clear river’s marge Narcissus lies,
    • The tangle of the forest in his hair,
    • The silence of the woodland in his eyes,
    • Wooing that drifting imagery which is
    • No sooner kissed than broken, memories of Salmacis.
    • Who is not boy or girl and yet is both,
    • Fed by two fires and unsatisfied
    • Through their excess, each passion being loath
    • For love’s own sake to leave the other’s side,
    • Yet killing love by staying, memories
    • Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent
    • moonlit trees.
    • Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf
    • At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew
    • Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf
    • And called the false Theseus back again nor knew
    • That Dionysos on an amber pard
    • Was close behind her: memories of what Maeonia’s bard
    • With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy,
    • Queen Helen lying in the carven room,
    • And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy
    • Trimming with dainty hand his helmet’s plume,
    • And far away the moil, the shout, the groan,
    • As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled
    • the stone;
    • Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword
    • Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch,
    • And all those tales imperishably stored
    • In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich
    • Than any gaudy galleon of Spain
    • Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring
    • back again,
    • For well I know they are not dead at all,
    • The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy,
    • They are asleep, and when they hear thee call
    • Will wake and think ’tis very Thessaly,
    • This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade
    • The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys
    • laughed and played.
    • If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird
    • Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne
    • Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard
    • The horn of Atalanta faintly blown
    • Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering
    • Through Bagley wood at evening found the
    • Attic poet’s spring,-
    • Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate
    • That pleadest for the moon against the day!
    • If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate
    • On that sweet questing, when Proserpina
    • Forgot it was not Sicily and leant
    • Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished
    • wonderment,-
    • Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!
    • If ever thou didst soothe with melody
    • One of that little clan, that brotherhood
    • Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany
    • More than the perfect sun of Raphael,
    • And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well,
    • Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young,
    • Let elemental things take form again,
    • And the old shapes of Beauty walk among
    • The simple garths and open crofts, as when
    • The son of Leto bare the willow rod,
    • And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed
    • the boyish God.
    • Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here
    • Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne,
    • And over whimpering tigers shake the spear
    • With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone,
    • While at his side the wanton Bassarid
    • Will throw the lion by the mane and catch
    • the mountain kid!
    • Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin,
    • And steal the mooned wings of Ashtaroth,
    • Upon whose icy chariot we could win
    • Cithaeron in an hour e’er the froth
    • Has overbrimmed the wine-vat or the Faun
    • Ceased from the treading! ay, before the
    • flickering lamp of dawn
    • Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest,
    • And warned the bat to close its filmy vans,
    • Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast
    • Will filch their beechnuts from the sleeping Pans
    • So softly that the little nested thrush
    • Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and
    • leap will rush
    • Down the green valley where the fallen dew
    • Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store,
    • Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew
    • Trample the loosestrife down along the shore,
    • And where their horned master sits in state
    • Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate!
    • Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face
    • Through the cool leaves Apollo’s lad will come,
    • The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase
    • Adown the chestnut copses all a-bloom,
    • And ivory-limbed, gray-eyed, with look of pride,
    • After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride.
    • Sing on! and I the dying boy will, see
    • Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell
    • That overweighs the jacinth, and to me
    • The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell,
    • And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes,
    • And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where
    • Adon lies!
    • Cry out aloud on Itys! memory
    • That foster-brother of remorse and pain
    • Drops poison in mine ear- O to be free,
    • To burn one’s old ships! and to launch again
    • Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
    • And fight old Proteus for the spoil of
    • coral-flowered caves?
    • O for Medea with her poppied spell!
    • O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
    • O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
    • Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,
    • And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she
    • Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,
    • Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased
    • From lily to lily on the level mead,
    • Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste
    • The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed,
    • Ere the black steeds had harried her away
    • Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick
    • and sunless day.
    • O for one midnight and as paramour
    • The Venus of the little Melian farm!
    • O that some antique statue for one hour
    • Might wake to passion, and that I could charm
    • The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair,
    • Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant
    • breast my lair!
    • Sing on! sing on! I would be drunk with life,
    • Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth,
    • I would forget the wearying wasted strife,
    • The riven vale, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,
    • The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,
    • The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull
    • insensate air!
    • Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe,
    • Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal
    • From joy its sweetest music, not as we
    • Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal
    • Our too untented wounds, and do but keep
    • Pain barricaded in our hearts, and murder
    • pillowed sleep.
    • Sing louder yet, why must I still behold
    • The wan white face of that deserted Christ,
    • Whose bleeding hands my hands did once infold.
    • Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed,
    • And now in mute and marble misery
    • Sirs in His lone dishonored House and weeps,
    • perchance for me.
    • O memory cast down thy wreathed shell!
    • Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene!
    • O sorrow, sorrow keep thy cloistered cell
    • Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly!
    • Cease, cease, sad bird, thou dost the forest wrong
    • To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song!
    • Cease, cease, or if ’tis anguish to be dumb
    • Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air,
    • Whose jocund carelessness doth more become
    • This English woodland than thy keen despair,
    • Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy lay
    • Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy
    • Daulian bay.
    • A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred,
    • Endymion would have passed across the mead
    • Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard
    • Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed
    • To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid
    • Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.
    • A moment more, the waking dove had cooed,
    • The silver daughter of the silver sea
    • With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed
    • Her wanton from the chase, the Dryope
    • Had thrust aside the branches of her oak
    • To see the he lusty gold-haired lad rein in his
    • snorting yoke.
    • A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss
    • Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon
    • Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis
    • Had bared his barren beauty to the moon,
    • And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile
    • Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile.
    • Down leaning the from his black and clustering hair
    • To shade those slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss,
    • Or else on yonder grassy slope with bare
    • High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis
    • Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer
    • From his green ambuscade with shrill hallo and pricking
    • spear.
    • Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!
    • O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!
    • O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill
    • Come not with such desponded answering!
    • No more thou winged Marsyas complain,
    • Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled
    • songs of pain!
    • It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,
    • No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,
    • The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,
    • And from the copse left desolate and bare
    • Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,
    • Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that
    • thrilling melody
    • So sad, that one might think a human heart
    • Brake in each separate note, a quality
    • Which music sometimes has, being the Art
    • Which is most nigh to tears and memory,
    • Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?
    • Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion
    • is not here,
    • Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,
    • No woven web of bloody heraldries,
    • But mossy dells for roving comrades made,
    • Warm valleys where the tired student lies
    • With half-shut book, and many a winding walk
    • Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.
    • The harmless rabbit gambols with its young
    • Across the trampled towing-path, where late
    • A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng
    • Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;
    • The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,
    • Works at its little loom, and from the dusky
    • red-caved sheds
    • Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out
    • Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock,
    • Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout
    • Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,
    • And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,
    • And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows
    • up the hill.
    • The heron passes homeward to the mere,
    • The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,
    • Gold world by world the silent stars appear,
    • And like a blossom blown before the breeze,
    • A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,
    • Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.
    • She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,
    • She knows Endymion is not far away,
    • ’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed
    • Which has no message of its own to play,
    • So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,
    • Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.
    • Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill
    • About the sombre woodland seems to cling,
    • Dying in music, else the air is still,
    • So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing
    • Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell
    • Each tiny dewdrop dripping from the, bluebell’s
    • brimming cell.
    • And far across the lengthening wold,
    • Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,
    • Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold
    • Marks the long High Street of the little town,
    • And warns me to return; I must not wait,
    • Hark! ’tis the curfew booming from the bell of
    • Christ Church Gate.