LIBER QUARTUS VEL MORTIS
215
CALLIOPE.
Ay! Ay! a woman’s silky tone
Makes music for eternity her own,
Till all men’s victories in song seem a dis-
cordant groan.
LESBIAN SHORE.
_ Upon my cliffs of green,
Beneath the azure skies,
She stands with looks of fire,
Sappho. Her hands between
Lies the wild world; she flies
From agony to agony of desire,
CALLIOPE.
Him, Orpheus, him she sings;
Loosing the living strings,
Till music fledged fares forth sunward on
moon-wrought wings.
LESBIAN SHORE.
Yea, by the solar name,
Orpheus her lips acclaim,
The centre and the silence! O! the torrent
of fine flame
Like hair that shooteth forth
To the ensanguine North
Whence ran the drunken crew, Bassarids in
their wrath.
SAPPHO.
Woe is me! the brow of a brazen morning
Breaks in blood on water athirst of Hebrus.
Sanguine horror starts on her hills tenebrous :
Hell hath not heard her !
Dumb and still thy birds, O Apollo, scorning
Song; yells drown them, lecherous anthems
gabbled,
Laughter splashed of Bassarids, blood-be-
dabbled,
Mad with their murder !
O thou many-coloured immortal maiden,
Dawn! O dew, delight of a world!
SOrrow
Hides your holy faces awhile. To-morrow
Comes for your calling?
A
Still the notes of musical Orpheus, laden
Never now of pain or of failing, follow;
Follow up the height, or adown the hollow
Fairy are falli
O my hopeless misery mind of longing !
O the anguish born in a breast unlovered !
Women, wail the face of a God uncovered,
Brain dead and breath dumb!
Wail the sense of infinite ardours thronging
Fast and fast and faster athwart the heaven,
Keen as light and cruel as fire, as levin
Swift and as death dumb!
Freedom, rapture, victory, fill the chorus,
Dying, ever dying, among the billows ;
Whispered, ever whispered among _ the
willows :—
Pour the libation !
Now springs up a notable age. Adore us
Masters now of music above his magic,
Lords of change, leaps pastoral up to tragic,
Thanks to the Thracian!
Ah, my pain! what desolate female bosoms,
Smitten hearts of delicate males, uncover ;
Grip not life for poet or sage or lover,
Feed on derision.
Yea, in these mature me avenger blossoms
Swift as swords to sever the subtle ether,
Lift the earth, see infinite space beneath her,
Swoon at the vision.
This, O Orpheus, this be a golden guerdon
Unto thee for gift of amaze and wonder!
This thy sorrow, sword of a heart asunder,
Beareth a flower.
This the heart of woman—a bitter burden !—
Thou hast filled with seed—O a seed of
_madness !
Seed of music! seed of a royal sadness !—
This be our dower !