|
| “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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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 whose did receive of them, | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| 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.” | 45 |
|
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, | 50 |
| 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-leav’d flowers weep, | 55 |
| And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. | |
|
II
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, | |
| And utterly consum’d with sharp distress, | |
| While all things else have rest from weariness? | |
| All things have rest: why should we toil alone, | 60 |
| We only toil, who are the first of things, | |
| And make perpetual moan, | |
| Still from one sorrow to another thrown: | |
| Nor never fold our wings, | |
| And cease from wanderings, | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| The folded leaf is wooed 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 | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
| 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? | 90 |
| 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? | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| 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 | 115 |
| 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 | 120 |
| 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. | 125 |
| The Gods are hard to reconcile: | |
| ’T is hard to settle order once again. | |
| There is confusion worse than death, | |
| Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, | |
| Long labor unto aged breath, | 130 |
| Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars | |
| And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. | |
|
VII
But propp’d on beds of amaranth and moly, | |
| How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) | |
| With half-dropp’d eyelid still, | 135 |
| 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-twin’d vine— | 140 |
| To watch the emerald-color’d water falling | |
| Thro’ many a wov’n 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: | 145 |
| 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, | 150 |
| 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 reclin’d | |
| On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. | 155 |
| 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, | 160 |
| 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-us’d race of men that cleave the soil, | 165 |
| 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, ’t is whisper’d—down in hell | |
| Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, | |
| Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. | 170 |
| Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore | |
| Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; | |
| Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. | |
|
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