178
ORPHEUS
I step to the river.
The lyre-strings quiver ;
The limbs of me shudder;
So cold is the mist ;
So dark is the stream ;
So fearful the boat ;
So horrid the rudder ;
So black is the tryst ;
So frightful the beam ;
So fearing to float ;
The steersman so dread,
The shadowy shape of a ghost that guides
the bark of the dead!
Aged and foul,
His locks wreathe about him.
Horrid his scowl !
Haggard his soul !
My songs control
While they fear him and doubt
him.
I step in the boat,
And the waters ache,
And the old boards shake.
I shall hardly float,
So heavy the soul
Of a living man
On those waters that roll
Nine times around
The fatal ground;
Yet still to my singing we move on the river
Tartarean.
So darker and colder
The stream as we float:
Blacker and bleaker,
The mist on the river !
Stronger the shoulder
Impels the sad boat.
Sadder and weaker
Shudder and quiver
The notes of the lyre.
Quenched is my fire
In the fog of the air.
Dim my desire
Cuts through the snare.
The cold confounds me ;
The mist surrounds me;
Life trembles and lowers ;
Earth fades from miy life.
The love of my wife,
The light of the flowers,
Earth’s beautiful bowers.
Pass, and are not.
I am awed by the soul of the place, the hope-
less, the desolate spot.
Here is the wharf
Wearily standing,
Misshapen and dwarf,
Well fit for such landing !
Darker the bloom
Of the night-flowers glows,
Shadowing the tomb,
The indicible woes.
Dark and unlovely the cypress
still grows
Deformed and blistered,
Stunted and blackened,
Where the dead gleams glistered,
The dusk-lights slackened.
Such is the shore
Who reacheth may never
Return o’er the river !
Here pace evermore
The terrible ghosts
Malignant of men,
Whose airless hosts
In wars unjust
Went down to the den ;
Whose fury and lust
Turned poison or steel
On their own bad lives.
Here whirls the grim wheel
Where the dead soul strives
Ever to climb
To the iron nave,
Find Space and Time,
Or a God to save,
Or a way o’er the wave.
The Fate contrives
That he never thrives.
Revolving anon,
The gleam is gone,
And the shadowy smile