Collected Works (Vol. III)

128 ORPHEUS How wayward, how feeble the child Three watched from the stars at his birth; Erato the fierce and the mild ; Polymnia grave ; and the girth Broad-girdled of gold and desire, Melpomene’s terrible lyre, That lifts up her life in the wild, The star-piercing pean, and floats in mid- ether, and sinks to the earth. These three of the Muses were mine; They nurtured and knew me and kissed. Erato was hidden in wine; Polymnia dawned in the mist: Melpomene shone in the pyre Ofterrors that burned in her lyre; But all of their passion divine I lost in the life and the stress of the world ere ever the soul of me wist. But, Orpheus, thy splendider light Was the veil of thyself the moresplendid. Thou leapedst as a fountain in flight, As a bird in the rainbow descended ! From the sweet single womb risen higher Did Calliope string thee her lyre, Thy mother: and veiled her in night :— For thyself to Herself art a veil till the veils of the Heaven be rended and ended. Now, single myself as thy soul, I pray to Apollo indeed ! Fling forth to the starriest goal My spirit, invoking his rede ;? Care nought for his mercy or ire $ Reach impious hands to his lyre. Determined to die or control Those strings the immortal at last, though the strings of this heart of me bleed. Come life, or come death ; come disdain Or honour from mutable men, I cry in this passionate pain— My blood be poured out in the pen! Euterpe ! Espouse me ! Inspire My life looking up to Thy lyre! Of thy love, thine alone, am I fain! Be with me, possess me, reveal me the melodies never yet given to men. The starry and heavenly wheels, The earth and her glorious dye, The light that the darkness reveals, The river, the sea, and the sky; 1 Counsel. All nature, or joyful or dire, Life, death, let them throng to the lyre, All sealed with the marvellous seals ! Let them live in my sob, let them love in my song, let them even be I! Let me in most various song Be seasons, be rivers that roll, Be stars, the untameable throng, All parts of the ultimate whole; All nature in various attire Be woven to one tune of the lyre, One tune where a million belong— Multitudinous murmur and moan, melodious, one soul with my soul ! One soul with the wail of distress The ravished Persephone flung ; One soul with the song of success, Demeter’s, that found her and sung ; One soul with all spirits drawn nigher From invisible worlds to the lyre ;— They throng me and silently press The strings as I need them, and quicken my fingers and loosen my tongue ! And thou, O supreme, O Apollo! I have lived in Thy lands for a year, Under skies, where the azure was hollow, The vault of black midnight was clear. Think ! I who have borne Thee, nor tire— May I not lift up on Thy lyre Most reverent fingers, and follow Thy path, take Thy reins, drive Thy chariot and horses of song without fear? Let the lightning be harnessed before me, The thunder be chained to my car, The sea roll asunder that bore me, The sky peal my clarion of war ! As a warrior’s my chariot shall gyre! As a lord I will sharpen the lyre ! The stars and the moon shall adore me, Not seeing mean me, but Thyself in the glory, the splendidest star. Around me the planets shall thunder, And earth lift her voice to the sea ; The moon shall be smitten with wonder, The starlight look love unto me. Comets, meteors, storms shall admire, Be mingled in tune to my lyre, The universe broken in sunder,— And I—shall I burn, pass away? Having been for a moment the shadow of Thee!