Collected Works (Vol. III)

200 ORPHEUS Drench the mute mind grown dim With quietude ! Fix thy sharp lightnings. in my night ! spirit free ! Mix with my breath and life and name thy mood And self of Thee. [HERMES appears: ORPHEUS departs. My The magical task and the labour is ended; The toils are unwoven, the battle is done ; My lover comes back to my arms, to the splendid Abyss of the air and abode of the sun. The sword be assuaged, and the bow be un- bended ! The labour is past, and the victory won. The arrows of song through [fell cease to hurtle. Away to the passionate gardens of Greece, Where the thrush is awake, and the voice of the turtle Is soft in the amorous places of peace, And the tamarisk groves and the olive and myrtle Stir ever with love and content and release. O bountiful bowers and O beautiful gardens! O isles in the azure Ionian deep! Ere ripens the sun, ere the spring-wind hardens Your fruits once again ye shall have me to keep. A The sleep-god laments, and the love goddess pardons, When love atthe last sinks unweary to sleep. The green-hearted hours shall burst into flowers. The winds shall waft roses from uttermost Ind. Our nuptial dowers shall be birds in our bowers, Our couches the delicate heaps of the wind, Where the lily-bloom showers all its light, and the powers Of earth in our twinning are wedded and twinned. So singing I make reverence and retire; Not with high words of worship fairly flung To that sad monarch from the magic lyre, And half the triumphs in my heart unsung, Surpassing, as such triumphs must, all praise Of golden strings and human- fashioned tongue. But now I follow the uprising ways By secret paths indubitably drawn Straight from the centre of the trackless maze To light of earth and beauty of the dawn, A sure swift passage taught of wit divine To the wide ocean, the Achzean lawn. For, wit ye well, not easy is that shrine Of access to the mortal, as some tell, Not knowing : easy and exact the line Of light to upper air: but awful spell And dire demand the inward journey needs : That is the labour, that the work: for Hell Is not designed for men’s aspiring deeds. The air is fatal, and the fear unspanned, Even ere the traveller fronts the Stygian meads And utmost edge of the detested land. Wherefore already doth the light appear Shaped in the image of a little hand Far up the rocky cavern: warm and clear The good air sends its fragrance: glory then To the great work accomplished even here, Promise and purpose unto little men Bound in life’s limits: death indeed I sever By will’s efficiency and speechless ken Of power not God’s but man’s. Forget this never, O mortals chained invlife’s detested den ! I leave this heritage to you for ever. O light of Apollo! O joy of the sky! We see thee, we follow, We draw to thee nigh.