“COURAGE!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
|
|
“This mounting wave
will roll us shoreward soon.”
|
|
In the afternoon they
came unto a land
|
|
In which it seemed
always afternoon.
|
|
All round the coast
the languid air did swoon,
|
|
Breathing like one
that hath a weary dream.
|
|
Full-faced above the
valley stood the moon;
|
|
And, like a downward
smoke, the slender stream
|
|
Along the cliff to
fall and pause and fall did seem.
|
|
|
|
A land of streams!
some, like a downward smoke,
|
|
Slow-dropping veils of
thinnest lawn, did go;
|
|
And some thro’
wavering lights and shadows broke,
|
|
Rolling a slumbrous
sheet of foam below.
|
|
They saw the gleaming
river seaward flow
|
|
From the inner land;
far off, three mountain-tops,
|
|
Three silent pinnacles
of aged snow,
|
|
Stood sunset-flush’d;
and, dew’d with showery drops,
|
|
Up-clomb the shadowy
pine above the woven copse.
|
|
|
|
The charmed sunset
linger’d low adown
|
|
In the red West; thro’
mountain clefts the dale
|
|
Was seen far inland,
and the yellow down
|
|
Border’d with palm,
and many a winding vale
|
|
And meadow, set with
slender galingale;
|
|
A land where all
things always seem’d the same!
|
|
And round about the
keel with faces pale,
|
|
Dark faces pale
against that rosy flame,
|
|
The mild-eyed
melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
|
|
|
|
Branches they bore of
that enchanted stem,
|
|
Laden with flower and
fruit, whereof they gave
|
|
To each, but whoso did
receive of them
|
|
And taste, to him the
gushing of the wave
|
|
Far far away did seem
to mourn and rave
|
|
On alien shores; and
if his fellow spake,
|
|
His voice was thin, as
voices from the grave;
|
|
And deep-asleep he
seem’d, yet all awake,
|
|
And music in his ears
his beating heart did make.
|
|
|
|
They sat them down
upon the yellow sand,
|
|
Between the sun and
moon upon the shore;
|
|
And sweet it was to
dream of Fatherland,
|
|
Of child, and wife,
and slave; but evermore
|
|
Most weary seem’d the
sea, weary the oar,
|
|
Weary the wandering
fields of barren foam.
|
|
Then some one said,
“We will return no more;”
|
|
And all at once they
sang, “Our island home
|
|
Is far beyond the
wave; we will no longer roam.”
|
|
|
|
CHORIC SONG
I
There is sweet music here that softer falls
|
|
Than petals from blown
roses on the grass,
|
|
Or night-dews on still
waters between walls
|
|
Of shadowy granite, in
a gleaming pass;
|
|
Music that gentlier on
the spirit lies,
|
|
Than tir’d eyelids
upon tir’d eyes;
|
|
Music that brings
sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
|
|
Here are cool mosses
deep,
|
|
And thro’ the moss the
ivies creep,
|
|
And in the stream the
long-leaved flowers weep,
|
|
And from the craggy
ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
|
|
|
|
II
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,
|
|
And utterly consumed
with sharp distress,
|
|
While all things else
have rest from weariness?
|
|
All things have rest:
why should we toil alone,
|
|
We only toil, who are
the first of things,
|
|
And make perpetual
moan,
|
|
Still from one sorrow
to another thrown;
|
|
Nor ever fold our
wings,
|
|
And cease from
wanderings,
|
|
Nor steep our brows in
slumber’s holy balm;
|
|
Nor harken what the
inner spirit sings,
|
|
“There is no joy but
calm!”—
|
|
Why should we only
toil, the roof and crown of things?
|
|
|
|
III
Lo! in the middle of the wood,
|
|
The folded leaf is
woo’d from out the bud
|
|
With winds upon the
branch, and there
|
|
Grows green and broad,
and takes no care,
|
|
Sun-steep’d at noon,
and in the moon
|
|
Nightly dew-fed; and
turning yellow
|
|
Falls, and floats
adown the air.
|
|
Lo! sweeten’d with the
summer light,
|
|
The full-juiced apple,
waxing over-mellow,
|
|
Drops in a silent
autumn night.
|
|
All its allotted
length of days
|
|
The flower ripens in
its place,
|
|
Ripens and fades, and
falls, and hath no toil,
|
|
Fast-rooted in the
fruitful soil.
|
|
|
|
IV
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
|
|
Vaulted o’er the
dark-blue sea.
|
|
Death is the end of
life; ah, why
|
|
Should life all labor
be?
|
|
Let us alone. Time
driveth onward fast,
|
|
And in a little while
our lips are dumb.
|
|
Let us alone. What is
it that will last?
|
|
All things are taken
from us, and become
|
|
Portions and parcels
of the dreadful past.
|
|
Let us alone. What
pleasure can we have
|
|
To war with evil? Is
there any peace
|
|
In ever climbing up
the climbing wave?
|
|
All things have rest,
and ripen toward the grave
|
|
In silence—ripen,
fall, and cease:
|
|
Give us long rest or
death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
|
|
|
|
V
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
|
|
With half-shut eyes
ever to seem
|
|
Falling asleep in a
half-dream!
|
|
To dream and dream,
like yonder amber light,
|
|
Which will not leave
the myrrh-bush on the height;
|
|
To hear each other’s
whisper’d speech;
|
|
Eating the Lotos day
by day,
|
|
To watch the crisping
ripples on the beach,
|
|
And tender curving
lines of creamy spray;
|
|
To lend our hearts and
spirits wholly
|
|
To the influence of
mild-minded melancholy;
|
|
To muse and brood and
live again in memory,
|
|
With those old faces
of our infancy
|
|
Heap’d over with a
mound of grass,
|
|
Two handfuls of white
dust, shut in an urn of brass!
|
|
|
|
VI
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
|
|
And dear the last
embraces of our wives
|
|
And their warm tears;
but all hath suffer’d change;
|
|
For surely now our
household hearths are cold,
|
|
Our sons inherit us,
our looks are strange,
|
|
And we should come
like ghosts to trouble joy.
|
|
Or else the island
princes over-bold
|
|
Have eat our
substance, and the minstrel sings
|
|
Before them of the ten
years’ war in Troy,
|
|
And our great deeds,
as half-forgotten things.
|
|
Is there confusion in
the little isle?
|
|
Let what is broken so
remain.
|
|
The Gods are hard to
reconcile;
|
|
’Tis hard to settle
order once again.
|
|
There is confusion
worse than death,
|
|
Trouble on trouble,
pain on pain,
|
|
Long labor unto aged
breath,
|
|
Sore task to hearts
worn out by many wars
|
|
And eyes grown dim
with gazing on the pilot-stars.
|
|
|
|
VII
But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly,
|
|
How sweet—while warm
airs lull us, blowing lowly—
|
|
With half-dropped
eyelids still,
|
|
Beneath a heaven dark
and holy,
|
|
To watch the long
bright river drawing slowly
|
|
His waters from the
purple hill—
|
|
To hear the dewy
echoes calling
|
|
From cave to cave
thro’ the thick-twined vine—
|
|
To watch the
emerald-color’d water falling
|
|
Thro’ many a woven
acanthus-wreath divine!
|
|
Only to hear and see
the far-off sparkling brine,
|
|
Only to hear were
sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine.
|
|
|
|
VIII
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak,
|
|
The Lotos blows by
every winding creek;
|
|
All day the wind
breathes low with mellower tone;
|
|
Thro’ every hollow
cave and alley lone
|
|
Round and round the
spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
|
|
We have had enough of
action, and of motion we,
|
|
Roll’d to starboard,
roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
|
|
Where the wallowing
monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
|
|
Let us swear an oath,
and keep it with an equal mind,
|
|
In the hollow
Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
|
|
On the hills like Gods
together, careless of mankind.
|
|
For they lie beside
their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d
|
|
Far below them in the
valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d
|
|
Round their golden
houses, girdled with the gleaming world;
|
|
Where they smile in
secret, looking over wasted lands,
|
|
Blight and famine,
plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
|
|
Clanging fights, and
flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
|
|
But they smile, they
find a music centred in a doleful song
|
|
Steaming up, a
lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
|
|
Like a tale of little
meaning tho’ the words are strong;
|
|
Chanted from an
ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
|
|
Sow the seed, and reap
the harvest with enduring toil,
|
|
Storing yearly little
dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
|
|
Till they perish and
they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell
|
|
Suffer endless
anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
|
|
Resting weary limbs at
last on beds of asphodel.
|
|
Surely, surely,
slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
|
|
Than labor in the deep
mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
|
|
O, rest ye, brother
mariners, we will not wander more.
|
|
|
|
