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Page 1 of 21899 · PDF PAGE 78
70 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS Than earthly stars and flowers That beam lasciviously through nights empurpled hours ! O well of fire ! O fountain of delicious spurting flame Grown sad with shame, Whose imminent desire Drinks in the dew of earth, Gives its own limpid streams to quench mans deathly dearth. O gardened rose ! The fern-fronds gird thy fragrant beauty round. Thy ways are bound With petals that unclose When the sun seeks his way Through night and sleep and love to all the dreams of day. Love, sleep, and death ! The three that melt together,…
1899 · PDF PAGE 96
… the chant of wonder ; Star to star must add to the glowing chorus ; Sun and moon must mingle and speed the echo Flaming through heaven. Night and day divide, and the music strengthens, Gathers roar of seas and the dirge of moor- lands ; Tempest, thunder, birds, and the breeze of summer Join to augment it. So the sound-world, filled of the fire of all things, Rolls majestic torrents of mighty music Through the stars where dwell the avenging spirits Bound in the whirlwind . . . So the cliffs their Song . . . For the mist re- gathers, Girds them …
1899 · PDF PAGE 71
THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 63 The flash of her desire within his brain Came as a meteor through the wildered train Of solemn spheres of nights majestic court. He kissed the extended hand, and lastly sought A blessing from the kindly Queen of Love. Then, smiling, she was bountiful thereof, And bade him haste away, when at the gate— Twin witch-oaks that presided oer the state Of that detested realm—he felt a change, Half pleasant, only beyond wonder strange, A change as from a joy to a delight, As from broad sunshine to the fall of night, As from stro…
1899 · PDF PAGE 42
…s, and bent his ear to seize Her further words. And she : Not many days Shall flame and flicker into darkened ways Before the wings of night, ere Hermes fly Hither, the messenger of Zeus. But I Bid thee remain beneath the temple gate While I consider our war on Fate. Till then, and I will tell thee everything That thou must do ; but now let song take wing Till the pale air swoon with the deep delight That makes cool noontide from the sultry night. What are your dreams, my maidens ? Your young dreams ? Are they of passion, or of rocks and stre…
1899 · PDF PAGE 60
…kable desirous star Like a blue diamond flaming in the void, Jewelled with satellite and asteroid, Where our desire is welcome. Yea, the night Holds in her bosom such a world of light As in this sick sad Earth would consume man With its quick blaze of truth. Thy bitter ban, Zeus, shall most utterly be made to cease. We must fight Fate and conquer it. Our peace, Our passion, is the silent answer given To the importunate questioning of heaven. Thou art supreme, my king, and I in thee ; We have life hard by its chill throat, to choke Its petty gas…
1899 · PDF PAGE 32
…CHAIS Of perfect love ; the sin that seeks its home In lights and longings frailer than the foam ; The sin that loves the hollows of the night, The sin that fears ; the sin that hates the light ; The sin that looks with wistful eyes ; the sin That trembles on the olive of the skin ; The sin that slumbers ; these divide the day And all the darkness, and deceive, and slay. And these regather in the womb of hell To marry and increase, and by the spell Of their own wickedness discover sin Unguessed at, but slow treason creeping in, To spread corrup…
1899 · PDF PAGE 50
…o venomous as hell The sudden hate that filled him. So away Knowing not whither, did he flee, till day Dropped her blue pinions, and the night drew on, And sable clouds banked out the weary sun.
1899 · PDF PAGE 87
THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 79 CHARICLES Night her bright bow-string has bended ; Fast flies her arrow unsparing Through the beech-leaves, Æher it cleaves Rapid and daring. Ah! how it strikes as with silver ! how the suns laughter is ended ! ARCHAIS How the moons arms are extended ! Semi-Chorus of Men Rejoicing, inarticulate with pleasure, Joy streams a comet in the strong control Of the suns love ; weave, weave the eager measure, Fill the seas brim from pleasures foaming bowl ! Semi-Chorus of Women Weave, weave the dance ; the stars are not your …
1899 · PDF PAGE 46
38 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS O lotus-flower too white, Starred purple, round and sweet, Rich golden wheat Of night. Ill kiss thee, lotus-flower, Ill pluck thee, yellow grain, Once and again This hour. There coos a dove to me Across the waves of space ; O passionate face To see ! Ill woo thee, silver dove, Caress thee, lotus-flower ; It is the hour Of Love. Cypris blushed deep ; albeit for love did swoon At the songs sweetness, while the cold dead moon Was still and pale ; her nymphs are fain to sigh With sudden longing filled, and like to die For…
1899 · PDF PAGE 12
…d truth to everything, Burning sorrow into mirth, Cradling, like a child, delight Born from the Cimmerian darkness of the hollow womb of Night, By the father of the gods, And the seasons periods To Eternity, the ocean flooded with the river, Light Ouranos ! Wave wide thy pinions Azure in the azure air, Over the serene dominions That our love has made so fair : Hark, O Heaven ! Hail thy sister, Earth, ex- panding everywhere With the blossom of Gods smile. Hark, old Ouranos, awhile To the music welling up From the sea of molten glass,
1899 · PDF PAGE 55
… of thy barren and vain Though queenliest shrine. I am of those Who hear their brazen clanging as they close Fastward on life, I wane to-night, wearied with endless strife, A lover always, never yet a wife, Lost in loves woes. O bitter doom ! Fierce love flames up, then sinks in eddying gloom Across the waves Whose awful stillness are lovers graves, Who chant in fearful melody the staves Of bitter doom. Not unperceived of Cypris did her song Die fitfully upon her tremulous tongue, Nor fell the melody on cruel ears : The bright-throat goddess…
1899 · PDF PAGE 54
…eft her, Archais Lift up her voice and prayed with zeal divine To Aphrodite, who from her far shrine Heard and flew fast to aid over the night-clad brine. PRAYER OF ARCHAIS O Mother of Love, By whom the earth and all its fountains move In harmony, Hear thou the bitter overwhelming cry Of me, who love, who am about to die Because of love. O Queenliest Shrine, Keeper of keys of heaven, most divine Yet Queen of Pain,
1899 · PDF PAGE 57
…he intolerable beam Of sunlight with light heart. They fled away At Cypris word, beyond the bounds of day Into the awful caverns of the night, Eerie with ghosts imagined, and the might Of strange spells cast upon them by the dead. So, ere the dying autumn-tide was fled, There, in a lonely cleft of riven rock, Whose iron fastnesses disdain and mock Fury and fire with impassivity, Archais rested, there alone must she Wait the event of Aphrodites wiles.
1899 · PDF PAGE 77
… seas that roar And stars that sing, by rivers and fresh flood, By his own essence, by his body and blood, To lay his godhead down, till night drew nigh, To be a mortal till the vesper cry Of dying breezes. So the morning past And found them linked inexorably fast Each in the others arms. Their lips are wed To drink the breezes from the fountain-head Of lovers breath. Now Zeus half rises up, Sips once again from that moon-curvéd cup, And, in his passion gazing on the flower, Darker and riper for Loves perfect hour, His clear voice through th…
1899 · PDF PAGE 65
…ir gods in petty filthiness. So Loves white-bosomed Queen gat full success In the first season of her sojourning. Then, on the verge of night, she went a-wing To that most damnèd pestilence-rid marsh, And, changing her bright shape, she donned the harsh Vile form of woman past the middle age, Who hath not virtue that may charm the sage When the desire of folly is gone by, And wrinkles yield to no false alchemy. So, lewd of countenance, dressed all in rags, She waited, fit mate of hells filthiest hags, Within a little hut upon the marge Extrem…
1899 · PDF PAGE 26
18 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS He ceased : but out of Heaven no sound of might, No tongue of flame gave answer. Still as night, Silence and sunlight, stream and mead, possessed The whole wide world. The maids reluctant breast Heaved with soft passion nowise understood, And her pulse quickened. Through the quiet wood Her answer rang : My voice with thine shall break The woodland stillness, for the fountains sake. Ill sing to thee—Lamia ! mother, I obey ! In vain the desperate boy pursued the way With awful eyes ; no bruiséd flower betrayed The te…
1899 · PDF PAGE 53
…ut at the coming of the even Were visions wonderful with indigo ; And in the glory of the afterglow Were rosy with its kiss ; and in the night Were crowned with that unutterable light That is a brilliance of solemn black, Glistening wide across the ocean track Of white-sailed ships and many mariners. So, on the tallest spire, where wakes and whirrs The eagle when dawn strikes his eyrie, came The maiden, clad in the abundant flame Of setting sun, with shapely shoulders bare, And even the glory of her midday hair Was bound above her head ; so, na…
1899 · PDF PAGE 67
…dew running off the bracken leaves, With gold more saturated than the sheaves In the red glow that promises the day Shall glory when the night is fled away In bonds, a captive ; so more glorious Than the supreme ideal dreams of us Mortals, he sprang forth suddenly a man. Wherefore the hag, triumphant, then began
1899 · PDF PAGE 66
…h foul age To burn into its vitals ; thus the breath Of Satyrs wantoning at noon with Death Strained it, and all but cast it loose ; the night Drew on the outer world ; no change of light Was known within those depths, but vermin knew By some strange instinct ; forth the unholy crew Of vampires and swamp-adders drew them out. Alone amid the pestilential rout Charicles crest did glimmer red with wrath, And, stealing from the barge, he drew him forth And writhed into the hut, for latterly So dark his soul had grown that never he For shame and so…
1899 · PDF PAGE 61
…re my silver feet, And your arms meet and hold me everso. You must remember when with feet of fire The New Moon flamed upon the crystal night, And your desire was touched of my desire, And both grew one delirious delight And I was made your wife for everso. How you lay close to me, your head quite low In the warm pillow where my head had lain, And I, as a young heifer newly slain, With soft tears wept and waited for your kiss, And knew the exquisite delight of pain Borne for loves sakeso lazily as this For ever, with your eyelids silver ra…