TIMOLEON ETC. NEW YORK THE CAXTON PRESS 1891 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY THE CAXTON PRESS TO MY COUNTRYMAN ELIHU VEDDER TABLE OF CONTENTS. TIMOLEON, . . . 7 AFTER THE PLEASURE PARTY, . 17 THE NIGHT MARCH, . . 26 THE RAVAGED VILLA, . 26 THE MARGRAVE'S BIRTHNIGHT, . 27 MAGIAN WINE, . . 29 THE GARDEN OF METRODORUS, . 30 THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN, . 30 THE WEAVER, . . 32 LAMIA'S SONG, . . 33 IN A GARRET, . 33 MONODY, . . . 34 LONE FOUNTS, . . 34 THE BENCH OF BOORS, . . 35 THE ENTHUSIAST, . 36 ART, . . . . 37 BUDDHA, . . 38 C_____'S LAMENT, . . . 38 SHELLEY'S VISION, . 39 FRAGMENTS OF A LOST GNOSTIC POEM OF THE 12TH CENTURY, 40 THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS, . 41 vi. Contents. THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES, . 41 HERBA SANTA, . . 43 FRUIT OF TRAVEL LONG AGO. VENICE, . . . 48 IN A BYE CANAL, . . . 48 PISA'S LEANING TOWER, . . 50 IN A CHURCH OF PADUA, . . 51 MILAN CATHEDRAL, . . 52 PAUSILIPPO, . . 53 THE ATTIC LANDSCAPE, . . 57 THE SAME, . . . 57 THE PARTHENON, . . 58 GREEK MASONRY, . . 60 GREEK ARCHITECTURE, . . 60 OFF CAPE COLONNA, . . 60 THE ARCHIPELAGO, . . 61 SYRA, . . 62 DISINTERMENT OF THE HERMES, . 65 THE APPARITION, . . 66 IN THE DESERT, . . 67 THE GREAT PYRAMID, . . 68 L' ENVOI. THE RETURN OF THE SIRE DE NESLE, . 70 TIMOLEON. (394 B. C.) I. IF more than once, as annals tell, Through blood without compunction spilt, An egotist arch rule has snatched, And stamped the seizure with his sabre's hilt, And, legalised by lawyers, stood ; Shall the good heart whose patriot fire Leaps to a deed of startling note, Do it, then flinch ? Shall good in weak expire ? Needs goodness lack the evil grit, That stares down censorship and ban, And dumfounds saintlier ones with this- God's will avouched in each successful man ? Or, put it, where dread stress inspires A virtue beyond man's standard rate, Seems virtue there a strain forbid- 8 Timoleon. Transcendence such as shares transgression's fate ? If so, and wan eclipse ensue, Yet glory await emergence won, Is that high Providence, or Chance ? And proved it which with thee, Timoleon ? O, crowned with laurel twined with thorn, Not rash thy life's cross-tide I stem, But reck the problem rolled in pang And reach and dare to touch thy garment's hem. II. When Argos and Cleone strove Against free Corinth's claim or right, Two brothers battled for her well : A footman one, and one a mounted knight. Apart in place, each braved the brunt Till the rash cavalryman, alone, Was wrecked against the enemy's files, His bayard crippled and he maimed and thrown. Timoleon, at Timophanes' need, Makes for the rescue through the fray, Covers him with his shield, and takes The darts and furious odds and fights at bay ; Till, wrought to palor of passion dumb, Stark terrors of death around he throws, Timoleon. 9 Warding his brother from the field Spite failing friends dispersed and rallying foes. Here might he rest, in claim rest here, Rest, and a Phidian form remain ; But life halts never, life must on, And take with term prolonged some scar or stain. Yes, life must on. And latent germs Time's seasons wake in mead and man ; And brothers, playfellows in youth, Develop into variance wide in span. III. Timophanes was his mother's pride- Her pride, her pet, even all to her Who slackly on Timoleon looked : Scarce he (she mused) may proud affection stir. He saved my darling, gossips tell : If so, 'twas service, yea, and fair ; But instinct ruled and duty bade, In service such, a henchman e'en might share. When boys they were I helped the bent ; I made the junior feel his place, Subserve the senior, love him, too ; And sooth he does, and that's his saving grace. But me the meek one never can serve, 10 Timoleon. Not he, he lacks the quality keen To make the mother through the son An envied dame of power, a social queen. But thou, my first-born, thou art I In sex translated ; joyed, I scan My features, mine, expressed in thee ; Thou art what I would be were I a man. My brave Timophanes, 'tis thou Who yet the world's fore-front shalt win, For thine the urgent resolute way, Self pushing panoplied self through thick and thin. Nor here maternal insight erred : Foresworn, with heart that did not wince At slaying men who kept their vows, Her darling strides to power, and reigns-a Prince. IV. Because of just heart and humane, Profound the hate Timoleon knew For crimes of pride and men-of-prey And impious deeds that perjurous upstarts do ; And Corinth loved he, and in way Old Scotia's clansman loved his clan, Timoleon. 11 Devotion one with ties how dear And passion that late to make the rescue ran. But crime and kin-the terrorized town, The silent, acquiescent mother- Revulsion racks the filial heart, The loyal son, the patriot true, the brother. In evil visions of the night He sees the lictors of the gods, Giant ministers of righteousness, Their fasces threatened by the Furies' rods. But undeterred he wills to act, Resolved thereon though Ate rise ; He heeds the voice whose mandate calls, Or seems to call, peremptory from the skies. V. Nor less but by approaches mild, And trying each prudential art, The just one first advances him In parley with a flushed intemperate heart. The brother first he seeks-alone, And pleads ; but is with laughter met ; Then comes he, in accord with two, And these adjure the tyrant and beset ; Whose merriment gives place to rage : 12 Timoleon. "Go," stamping, "what to me is Right ? I am the Wrong, and lo, I reign, And testily intolerant too in might :" And glooms on his mute brother pale, Who goes aside ; with muffled face He sobs the predetermined word, And Right in Corinth reassumes its place. VI. But on his robe, ah, whose the blood ? And craven ones their eyes avert, And heavy is a mother's ban, And dismal faces of the fools can hurt. The whispering-gallery of the world, Where each breathed slur runs wheeling wide Eddies a false perverted truth, Inveterate turning still on fratricide. The time was Plato's. Wandering lights Confirmed the atheist's standing star ; As now, no sanction Virtue knew For deeds that on prescriptive morals jar. Reaction took misgiving's tone, Infecting conscience, till betrayed To doubt the irrevocable doom Herself had authorised when undismayed. Timoleon. 13 Within perturbed Timoleon here Such deeps were bared as when the sea Convulsed, vacates its shoreward bed, And Nature's last reserves show nakedly. He falters, and from Hades' glens By night insidious tones implore- Why suffer ? hither come and be What Phocion is who feeleth man no more. But, won from that, his mood elects To live-to live in wilding place ; For years self-outcast, he but meets In shades his playfellow's reproachful face. Estranged through one transcendent deed From common membership in mart, In severance he is like a head Pale after battle trunkless found apart. VII. But flood-tide comes though long the ebb, Nor patience bides with passion long ; Like sightless orbs his thoughts are rolled Arraigning heaven as compromised in wrong : To second causes why appeal ? Vain parleying here with fellow clods. To you, Arch Principals, I rear 14 Timoleon. My quarrel, for this quarrel is with gods. Shall just men long to quit your world ? It is aspersion of your reign ; Your marbles in the temple stand- Yourselves as stony and invoked in vain ? Ah, bear with one quite overborne, Olympians, if he chide ye now ; Magnanimous be even though he rail And hard against ye set the bleaching brow. If conscience doubt, she'll next recant. What basis then ? O, tell at last, Are earnest natures staggering here But fatherless shadows from no substance cast ? Yea, are ye, gods ? Then ye, 'tis ye Should show what touch of tie ye may, Since ye, too, if not wrung are wronged By grievous misconceptions of your sway. But deign, some little sign be given- Low thunder in your tranquil skies ; Me reassure, nor let me be Like a lone dog that for a master cries. VIII. Men's moods, as frames, must yield to years, And turns the world in fickle ways ; Timoleon. 15 Corinth recalls Timoleon-ay, And plumes him forth, but yet with schooling phrase. On Sicily's fields, through arduous wars, A peace he won whose rainbow spanned The isle redeemed ; and he was hailed Deliverer of that fair colonial land. And Corinth clapt : Absolved, and more ! Justice in long arrears is thine : Not slayer of thy brother, no, But savior of the state, Jove's soldier, man divine. Eager for thee thy City waits : Return ! with bays we dress your door. But he, the Isle's loved guest, reposed, And never for Corinth left the adopted shore. AFTER THE PLEASURE PARTY. LINES TRACED UNDER AN IMAGE OF AMOR THREATENING. Fear me, virgin whosoever Taking pride from love exempt, Fear me, slighted. Never, never Brave me, nor my fury tempt : Downy wings, but wroth they beat Tempest even in reason's seat. After the Pleasure Party. 19 BEHIND the house the upland falls With many an odorous tree- White marbles gleaming through green halls, Terrace by terrace, down and down, And meets the starlit Mediterranean Sea. 'Tis Paradise. In such an hour Some pangs that rend might take release. Nor less perturbed who keeps this bower Of balm, nor finds balsamic peace ? From whom the passionate words in vent After long reverie's discontent ? Tired of the homeless deep, Look how their flight yon hurrying billows urge, Hitherward but to reap Passive repulse from the iron-bound verge ! Insensate, can they never know 'Tis mad to wreck the impulsion so ? An art of memory is, they tell : But to forget ! forget the glade Wherein Fate sprung Love's ambuscade, 20 After the Pleasure Party. To flout pale years of cloistral life And flush me in this sensuous strife. 'Tis Vesta struck with Sappho's smart. No fable her delirious leap : With more of cause in desperate heart, Myself could take it-but to sleep ! Now first I feel, what all may ween, That soon or late, if faded e'en, One's sex asserts itself. Desire, The dear desire through love to sway, Is like the Geysers that aspire- Through cold obstruction win their fervid way. But baffied here-to take disdain, To feel rule's instinct, yet not reign ; To dote, to come to this drear shame- Hence the winged blaze that sweeps my soul Like prairie fires that spurn control, Where withering weeds incense the flame. And kept I long heaven's watch for this, Contemning love, for this, even this ? O terrace chill in Northern air, O reaching ranging tube I placed Against yon skies, and fable chased Till, fool, I hailed for sister there After the Pleasure Party. 21 Starred Cassiopea in Golden Chair. In dream I throned me, nor I saw In cell the idiot crowned with straw. And yet, ah yet scarce ill I reigned, Through self-illusion self-sustained, When now-enlightened, undeceived- What gain I barrenly bereaved ! Than this can be yet lower decline- Envy and spleen, can these be mine ? The peasant girl demure that trod Beside our wheels that climbed the way, And bore along a blossoming rod That looked the sceptre of May-Day- On her-to fire this petty hell, His softened glance how moistly fell ! The cheat ! on briars her buds were strung ; And wiles peeped forth from mien how meek. The innocent bare-foot ! young, so young ! To girls, strong man's a novice weak. To tell such beads ! And more remain, Sad rosary of belittling pain. When after lunch and sallies gay Like the Decameron folk we lay 22 After the Pleasure Party. In sylvan groups ; and I---let be ! O, dreams he, can he dream that one Because not roseate feels no sun ? The plain lone bramble thrills with Spring As much as vines that grapes shall bring. Me now fair studies charm no more. Shall great thoughts writ, or high themes sung Damask wan cheeks-unlock his arm About some radiant ninny flung ? How glad with all my starry lore, I'd buy the veriest wanton's rose Would but my bee therein repose. Could I remake me ! or set free This sexless bound in sex, then plunge Deeper than Sappho, in a lunge Piercing Pan's paramount mystery ! For, Nature, in no shallow surge Against thee either sex may urge, Why hast thou made us but in halves- Co-relatives ? This makes us slaves. If these co-relatives never meet Self-hood itself seems incomplete. And such the dicing of blind fate After the Pleasure Party. 23 Few matching halves here meet and mate. What Cosmic jest or Anarch blunder The human integral clove asunder And shied the fractions through life's gate ? Ye stars that long your votary knew Rapt in her vigil, see me here ! Whither is gone the spell ye threw When rose before me Cassiopea ? Usurped on by love's stronger reign- But lo, your very selves do wane : Light breaks-truth breaks ! Silvered no more, But chilled by dawn that brings the gale Shivers yon bramble above the vale, And disillusion opens all the shore. One knows not if Urania yet The pleasure-party may forget ; Or whether she lived down the strain Of turbulent heart and rebel brain ; For Amor so resents a slight, And her's had been such haught disdain, He long may wreak his boyish spite, And boy-like, little reck the pain. 24 After the Pleasure Party. One knows not, no. But late in Rome (For queens discrowned a congruous home) Entering Albani's porch she stood Fixed by an antique pagan stone Colossal carved. No anchorite seer, Not Thomas a Kempis, monk austere, Religious more are in their tone ; Yet far, how far from Christian heart That form august of heathen Art. Swayed by its influence, long she stood, Till surged emotion seething down, She rallied and this mood she won : Languid in frame for me, To-day by Mary's convent shrine, Touched by her picture's moving plea In that poor nerveless hour of mine, I mused-A wanderer still must grieve. Half I resolved to kneel and believe, Believe and submit, the veil take on. But thee, armed Virgin ! less benign, Thee now I invoke, thou mightier one. Helmeted woman-if such term Befit thee, far from strife Of that which makes the sexual feud And clogs the aspirant life- After the Pleasure Party. 25 O self-reliant, strong and free, Thou in whom power and peace unite, Transcender ! raise me up to thee, Raise me and arm me ! Fond appeal. For never passion peace shall bring, Nor Art inanimate for long Inspire. Nothing may help or heal While Amor incensed remembers wrong. Vindictive, not himself he'll spare ; For scope to give his vengeance play Himself he'll blaspheme and betray. Then for Urania, virgins everywhere, O pray ! Example take too, and have care. 26 The Night-March. THE NIGHT-MARCH. WITH banners furled, and clarions mute, An army passes in the night ; And beaming spears and helms salute The dark with bright. In silence deep the legions stream, With open ranks, in order true ; Over boundless plains they stream and gleam- No chief in view ! Afar, in twinkling distance lost, (So legends tell) he lonely wends And back through all that shining host His mandate sends. THE RAVAGED VILLA. IN shards the sylvan vases lie, Their links of dance undone, And brambles wither by thy brim, Choked fountain of the sun ! The spider in the laurel spins, The weed exiles the flower : And, flung to kiln, Apollo's bust Makes lime for Mammon's tower. THE MARGRAVE'S BIRTHNIGHT. UP from many a sheeted valley, From white woods as well, Down too from each fleecy upland Jingles many a bell Jovial on the work-sad horses Hitched to runners old Of the toil-worn peasants sledging Under sheepskins in the cold ; Till from every quarter gathered Meet they on one ledge, There from hoods they brush the snow off Lighting from each sledge Full before the Margrave's castle, Summoned there to cheer On his birth-night, in mid-winter, Kept year after year. 28 The Margrave's Birthnight. O the hall, and O the holly ! Tables line each wall ; Guests as holly-berries plenty, But-no host withal ! May his people feast contented While at head of board Empty throne and vacant cover Speak the absent lord ? Minstrels enter. And the stewards Serve the guests ; and when, Passing there the vacant cover, Functionally then Old observance grave they offer ; But no Margrave fair, In his living aspect gracious, Sits responsive there ; No, and never guest once marvels, None the good lord name, Scarce they mark void throne and cover- Dust upon the same. Mindless as to what importeth Absence such in hall ; Magian Wine. 29 Tacit as the plough-horse feeding In the palfrey's stall. Ah, enough for toil and travail, If but for a night Into wine is turned the water, Black bread into white. MAGIAN WINE. AMULETS gemmed, to Miriam dear, Adown in liquid mirage gleam ; Solomon's Syrian charms appear, Opal and ring supreme. The rays that light this Magian Wine Thrill up from semblances divine. And, seething through the rapturous wave, What low Elysian anthems rise : Sibylline inklings blending rave, Then lap the verge with sighs. Delirious here the oracles swim Ambiguous in the beading hymn. 30 The Garden of Metrodorus. THE GARDEN OF METRODORUS. THE Athenians mark the moss-grown gate And hedge untrimmed that hides the haven green : And who keeps here his quiet state ? And shares he sad or happy fate Where never foot-path to the gate is seen ? Here none come forth, here none go in, Here silence strange, and dumb seclusion dwell : Content from loneness who may win ? And is this stillness peace or sin Which noteless thus apart can keep its dell ? THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN. PERSIAN, you rise Aflame from climes of sacrifice Where adulators sue, And prostrate man, with brow abased, Adheres to rites whose tenor traced All worship hitherto. The New Zealot to the Sun. 31 Arch type of sway, Meetly your over-ruling ray You fling from Asia's plain, Whence flashed the javelins abroad Of many a wild incursive horde Led by some shepherd Cain. Mid terrors dinned Gods too came conquerors from your Ind, The brood of Brahma throve ; They came like to the scythed car, Westward they rolled their empire far, Of night their purple wove. Chemist, you breed In orient climes each sorcerous weed That energizes dream- Transmitted, spread in myths and creeds, Houris and hells, delirious screeds And Calvin's last extreme. What though your light In time's first dawn compelled the flight Of Chaos' startled clan, Shall never all your darted spears Disperse worse Anarchs, frauds and fears, Sprung from these weeds to man ? 32 The Weaver. But Science yet An effluence ampler shall beget, And power beyond your play- Shall quell the shades you fail to rout, Yea, searching every secret out Elucidate your ray. THE WEAVER. FOR years within a mud-built room For Arva's shrine he weaves the shawl, Lone wight, and at a lonely loom, His busy shadow on the wall. The face is pinched, the form is bent, No pastime knows he nor the wine, Recluse he lives and abstinent Who weaves for Arva's shrine. Lamia's Song. 33 LAMIA'S SONG. DESCEND, descend ! Pleasant the downward way- From your lonely Alp With the wintry scalp To our myrtles in valleys of May. Wend then, wend : Mountaineer, descend ! And more than a wreath shall repay. Come, ah come ! With the cataracts come, That hymn as they roam How pleasant the downward way ! IN A GARRET. GEMS and jewels let them heap- Wax sumptuous as the Sophi : For me, to grapple from Art's deep One dripping trophy ! 34 Monody. MONODY. TO have known him, to have loved him After loneness long ; And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong ; And now for death to set his seal- Ease me, a little ease, my song ! By wintry hills his hermit-mound The sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits Beneath the fir-trees' crape : Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine That hid the shyest grape. LONE FOUNTS. THOUGH fast youth's glorious fable flies, View not the world with worldling's eyes ; Nor turn with weather of the time. Foreclose the coming of surprise : Stand where Posterity shall stand ; The Bench of Boors. 35 Stand where the Ancients stood before, And, dipping in lone founts thy hand, Drink of the never-varying lore : Wise once, and wise thence evermore. THE BENCH OF BOORS. IN bed I muse on Tenier's boors, Embrowned and beery losels all : A wakeful brain Elaborates pain : Within low doors the slugs of boors Laze and yawn and doze again. In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors, Their hazy hovel warm and small : Thought's ampler bound But chill is found : Within low doors the basking boors Snugly hug the ember-mound. Sleepless, I see the slumberous boors Their blurred eyes blink, their eyelids fall : Thought's eager sight Aches-overbright ! Within low doors the boozy boors Cat-naps take in pipe-bowl light. 36 The Enthusiast. THE ENTHUSIAST. "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him." SHALL hearts that beat no base retreat In youth's magnanimous years- Ignoble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears ; Shall spirits that worship light Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, Conform and own them right ? Shall Time with creeping influence cold Unnerve and cow ? the heart Pine for the heartless ones enrolled With palterers of the mart ? Shall faith abjure her skies, Or pale probation blench her down To shrink from Truth so still, so lone Mid loud gregarious lies ? Each burning boat in Cæsar's rear, Flames-No return through me ! So put the torch to ties though dear, If ties but tempters be. Art. 37 Nor cringe if come the night : Walk through the cloud to meet the pall, Though light forsake thee, never fall From fealty to light. ART. IN placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate : A flame to melt-a wind to freeze ; Sad patience-joyous energies ; Humility-yet pride and scorn ; Instinct and study ; love and hate ; Audacity-reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel-Art. 38 Buddha. BUDDHA. "For what is your life ? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." SWOONING swim to less and less Aspirant to nothingness ! Sobs of the worlds, and dole of kinds That dumb endurers be- Nirvana ! absorb us in your skies, Annul us into thee. C____________'S LAMENT. HOW lovely was the light of heaven, What angels leaned from out the sky In years when youth was more than wine And man and nature seemed divine Ere yet I felt that youth must die. Ere yet I felt that youth must die How insubstantial looked the earth, Aladdin-land ! in each advance, Or here or there, a new romance ; I never dreamed would come a dearth. Shelley's Vision. 39 And nothing then but had its worth, Even pain. Yes, pleasure still and pain In quick reaction made of life A lovers' quarrel, happy strife In youth that never comes again. But will youth never come again ? Even to his grave-bed has he gone, And left me lone to wake by night With heavy heart that erst was light ? O, lay it at his head-a stone ! SHELLEY'S VISION. WANDERING late by morning seas When my heart with pain was low- Hate the censor pelted me- Deject I saw my shadow go. In elf-caprice of bitter tone I too would pelt the pelted one : At my shadow I cast a stone. When lo, upon that sun-lit ground I saw the quivering phantom take The likeness of St Stephen crowned : Then did self-reverence awake. 40 Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem, etc. FRAGMENTS OF A LOST GNOSTIC POEM OF THE 12TH CENTURY. * * * * FOUND a family, build a state, The pledged event is still the same : Matter in end will never abate His ancient brutal claim. * * * * Indolence is heaven's ally here, And energy the child of hell : The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear But brims the poisoned well. The Marchioness of Brinvilliers. 41 THE MARCHIONESS OF BRIN- VILLIERS. HE toned the sprightly beam of morning With twilight meek of tender eve, Brightness interfused with softness, Light and shade did weave : And gave to candor equal place With mystery starred in open skies ; And, floating all in sweetness, made Her fathomless mild eyes. THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES. WHILE faith forecasts millenial years Spite Europe's embattled lines, Back to the Past one glance be cast- The Age of the Antonines ! O summit of fate, O zenith of time When a pagan gentleman reigned, And the olive was nailed to the inn of the world Nor the peace of the just was feigned. A halcyon Age, afar it shines, Solstice of Man and the Antonines. 42 The Age of The Antonines Hymns to the nations' friendly gods Went up from the fellowly shrines, No demagogue beat the pulpit-drum In the Age of the Antonines ! The sting was not dreamed to be taken from death, No Paradise pledged or sought, But they reasoned of fate at the flowing feast, Nor stifled the fluent thought. We sham, we shuffle while faith declines- They were frank in the Age of the Antonines. Orders and ranks they kept degree, Few felt how the parvenu pines, No law-maker took the lawless one's fee In the Age of the Antonines ! Under law made will the world reposed And the ruler's right confessed, For the heavens elected the Emperor then, The foremost of men the best. Ah, might we read in America's signs The Age restored of the Antonines. HERBA SANTA. I. AFTER long wars when comes release Not olive wands proclaiming peace An import dearer share Than stems of Herba Santa hazed In autumn's Indian air. Of moods they breathe that care disarm, They pledge us lenitive and calm. II. Shall code or creed a lure afford To win all selves to Love's accord ? When Love ordained a supper divine For the wide world of man, What bickerings o'er his gracious wine ! Then strange new feuds began. Effectual more in lowlier way, Pacific Herb, thy sensuous plea The bristling clans of Adam sway At least to fellowship in thee ! 44 Herba Santa. Before thine altar tribal flags are furled, Fain woulds't thou make one hearthstone of the world. III. To scythe, to sceptre, pen and hod- Yea, sodden laborers dumb ; To brains overplied, to feet that plod, In solace of the Truce of God The Calumet has come ! IV. Ah for the world ere Raleigh's find Never that knew this suasive balm That helps when Gilead's fails to heal, Helps by an interserted charm. Insinuous thou that through the nerve Windest the soul, and so canst win Some from repinings, some from sin, The Church's aim that dost subserve. The ruffled fag fordone with care And brooding, Gold would ease this pain : Him soothest thou and smoothest down Till some content return again. Herba Santa. 45 Even ruffians feel thy influence breed Saint Martin's summer in the mind, They feel this last evangel plead, As did the first, apart from creed, Be peaceful, man-be kind ! V. Rejected once on higher plane, O Love supreme, to come again Can this be thine ? Again to come, and win us too In likeness of a weed That as a god didst vainly woo, As man more vainly bleed ? VI. Forbear, my soul ! and in thine Eastern chamber Rehearse the dream that brings the long release : Through jasmine sweet and talismanic amber Inhaling Herba Santa in the passive Pipe of Peace. FRUIT OF TRAVEL LONG AGO. VENICE. WITH Pantheist energy of will The little craftsman of the Coral Sea Strenuous in the blue abyss, Up-builds his marvelous gallery And long arcade, Erections freaked with many a fringe Of marble garlandry, Evincing what a worm can do. Laborious in a shallower wave, Advanced in kindred art, A prouder agent proved Pan's might When Venice rose in reefs of palaces. IN A BYE-CANAL. A SWOON of noon, a trance of tide The hushed siesta brooding wide Like calms far off Peru ; No floating wayfarer in sight, Dumb noon, and haunted like the night When Jael the wiled one slew. In a Bye-Canal. 49 A languid impulse from the oar Plied by my indolent gondolier Tinkles against a palace hoar, And, hark, response I hear ! A lattice clicks ; and lo, I see Between the slats, mute summoning me, What loveliest eyes of scintillation, What basilisk glance of conjuration ! Fronted I have, part taken the span Of portents in nature and peril in man. I have swum-I have been Twixt the whale's black flukes and the white shark's fin ; The enemy's desert have wandered in, And there have turned, have turned and scanned, Following me how noiselessly, Envy and Slander, lepers hand in hand. All this. But at the latticed eye- "Hey ! Gondolier, you sleep, my man ; Wake up !" And, shooting by, we ran ; The while I mused, This, surely now, Confutes the Naturalists, allow ! Sirens, true sirens verily be, Sirens, waylayers in the sea. 50 Pisa's Leaning Tower. Well, wooed by these same deadly misses, Is it shame to run ? No ! flee them did divine Ulysses, Brave, wise, and Venus' son. PISA'S LEANING TOWER. THE Tower in tiers of architraves, Fair circle over cirque, A trunk of rounded colonades, The maker's master-work, Impends with all its pillared tribes, And, poising them, debates : It thinks to plunge-but hesitates ; Shrinks back-yet fain would slide ; Withholds itself-itself would urge ; Hovering, shivering on the verge, A would-be suicide ! In a Church of Padua. 51 IN A CHURCH OF PADUA. IN vaulted place where shadows flit, An upright sombre box you see : A door, but fast, and lattice none, But punctured holes minutely small In lateral silver panel square Above a kneeling-board without, Suggest an aim if not declare. Who bendeth here the tremulous knee No glimpse may get of him within, And he immured may hardly see The soul confessing there the sin ; Nor yields the low-sieved voice a tone Whereby the murmurer may be known. Dread diving-bell ! In thee inurned What hollows the priest must sound, Descending into consciences Where more is hid than found. 50 Milan Cathedral. MILAN CATHEDRAL. THROUGH light green haze, a rolling sea Over gardens where redundance flows, The fat old plain of Lombardy, The White Cathedral shows. Of Art the miracles Its tribes of pinnacles Gleam like to ice-peaks snowed ; and higher, Erect upon each airy spire In concourse without end, Statues of saints over saints ascend Like multitudinous forks of fire. What motive was the master-builder's here ? Why these synodic hierarchies given, Sublimely ranked in marble sessions clear, Except to signify the host of heaven. Pausilippo. 51 PAUSILIPPO. (In the time of Bomba.) A HILL there is that laves its feet In Naples' bay and lifts its head In jovial season, curled with vines. Its name, in pristine years conferred By settling Greeks, imports that none Who take the prospect thence can pine, For such the charm of beauty shown Even sorrow's self they cheerful weened Surcease might find and thank good Pan. Toward that hill my landau drew ; And there, hard by the verge, was seen Two faces with such meaning fraught One scarce could mark and straight pass on. A man it was less hoar with time Than bleached through strange immurement long, Retaining still, by doom depressed, Dim trace of some aspiring prime. 54 Pausilippo. Seated he tuned a homely harp Watched by a girl, whose filial mien Toward one almost a child again, Took on a staid maternal tone. Nor might one question that the locks Which in smoothed natural silvery curls Fell on the bowed one's thread-bare coat Betrayed her ministering hand. Anon, among some ramblers drawn A murmur rose "Tis Silvio, Silvio !" With inklings more in tone suppressed Touching his story, part recalled : Clandestine arrest abrupt by night ; The sole conjecturable cause The yearning in a patriot ode Construed as treason ; trial none ; Prolonged captivity profound ; Vain liberation late. All this, With pity for impoverishment And blight forestalling age's wane. Hillward the quelled enthusiast turned, Unmanned, made meek through strenuous wrong, Preluding, faltering ; then began, Pausilippo. 55 But only thrilled the wire-no more, The constant maid supplying voice, Hinting by no ineloquent sign That she was but his mouth-piece mere, Himself too spiritless and spent. Pausilippo, Pausilippo, Pledging easement unto pain, Shall your beauty even solace If one's sense of beauty wane ? Could light airs that round ye play Waft heart-heaviness away Or memory lull to sleep, Then, then indeed your balm Might Silvio becharm, And life in fount would leap, Pausilippo ! Did not your spell invite, In moods that slip between, A dream of years serene, And wake, to dash, delight- 56 Pausilippo. Evoking here in vision Fulfilment and fruition- Nor mine, nor meant for man ! Did hope not frequent share The mirage when despair Overtakes the caravan, Me then your scene might move To break from sorrow's snare, And apt your name would prove, Pausilippo ! But I've looked upon your revel- It unravels not the pain : Pausilippo, Pausilippo, Named benignly if in vain ! It ceased. In low and languid tone The tideless ripple lapped the passive shore ; As listlessly the bland untroubled heaven Looked down as silver doled was silent given In pity-futile as the ore ! The Attic Landscape. 57 THE ATTIC LANDSCAPE. TOURIST, spare the avid glance That greedy roves the sight to see : Little here of "Old Romance," Or Picturesque of Tivoli. No flushful tint the sense to warm- Pure outline pale, a linear charm. The clear-cut hills carved temples face, Respond, and share their sculptural grace. 'Tis Art and Nature lodged together, Sister by sister, cheek to cheek ; Such Art, such Nature, and such weather, The All-in-All seems here a Greek. THE SAME. A CIRCUMAMBIENT spell it is, Pellucid on these scenes that waits, Repose that does of Plato tell- Charm that his style authenticates. 58 The Parthenon. THE PARTHENON. I. Seen aloft from afar. ESTRANGED in site, Aerial gleaming, warmly white, You look a suncloud motionless In noon of day divine ; Your beauty charmed enhancement takes In Art's long after-shine. II. Nearer viewed. Like Lais, fairest of her kind, In subtlety your form's defined- The cornice curved, each shaft inclined, While yet, to eyes that do but revel And take the sweeping view, Erect this seems, and that a level, To line and plummet true. Spinoza gazes ; and in mind Dreams that one architect designed Lais-and you ! The Parthenon. 59 III. The Frieze. What happy musings genial went With airiest touch the chisel lent To frisk and curvet light Of horses gay-their riders grave- Contrasting so in action brave With virgins meekly bright, Clear filing on in even tone With pitcher each, one after one Like water-fowl in flight. IV. The Last Tile. When the last marble tile was laid The winds died down on all the seas ; Hushed were the birds, and swooned the glade ; Ictinus sat ; Aspasia said "Hist !-Art's meridian, Pericles !" 60 Greek Architecture. GREEK MASONRY. JOINTS were none that mortar sealed : Together, scarce with line revealed, The blocks in symmetry congealed. GREEK ARCHITECTURE. NOT magnitude, not lavishness, But Form-the Site ; Not innovating wilfulness, But reverence for the Archetype. OFF CAPE COLONNA. ALOOF they crown the foreland lone, From aloft they loftier rise- Fair columns, in the aureola rolled From sunned Greek seas and skies. They wax, sublimed to fancy's view, A god-like group against the blue. Over much like gods ! Serene they saw The wolf-waves board the deck, And headlong hull of Falconer, And many a deadlier wreck. The Archipelago. 61 THE ARCHIPELAGO. SAIL before the morning breeze The Sporads through and Cyclades They look like isles of absentees- Gone whither ? You bless Apollo's cheering ray, But Delos, his own isle, today Not e'en a Selkirk there to pray God friend me ! Scarce lone these groups, scarce lone and bare When Theseus roved a Raleigh there, Each isle a small Virginia fair- Unravished. Nor less through havoc fell they rue, They still retain in outline true Their grace of form when earth was new And primal. 62 Syra. But beauty clear, the frame's as yet, Never shall make one quite forget Thy picture, Pan, therein once set- Life's revel ! 'Tis Polynesia reft of palms, Seaward no valley breathes her balms- Not such as musk thy rings of calms, Marquesas ! SYRA. (A Transmitted Reminiscence.) FLEEING from Scio's smouldering vines (Where when the sword its work had done The Turk applied the torch) the Greek Came here, a fugitive stript of goods, Here to an all but tenantless isle, Nor here in footing gained at first, Felt safe. Still from the turbaned foe Dreading the doom of shipwrecked men Whom feline seas permit to land Syra. 63 Then pounce upon and drag them back, For height they made, and prudent won A cone-shaped fastness on whose flanks With pains they pitched their eyrie camp, Stone huts, whereto they wary clung ; But, reassured in end, come down- Multiplied through compatriots now, Refugees like themselves forlorn- And building along the water's verge Begin to thrive ; and thriving more When Greece at last flung off the Turk, Make of the haven mere a mart. I saw it in its earlier day- Primitive, such an isled resort As hearthless Homer might have known Wandering about the Ægean here. Sheds ribbed with wreck-stuff faced the sea Where goods in transit shelter found ; And here and there a shanty-shop Where Fez-caps, swords, tobacco, shawls Pistols, and orient finery, Eve's- (The spangles dimmed by hands profane ) Like plunder on a pirate's deck Lay orderless in such loose way As to suggest things ravished or gone astray. 64 Syra. Above a tented inn with fluttering flag A sunburnt board announced Greek wine In self-same text Anacreon knew, Dispensed by one named "Pericles." Got up as for the opera's scene, Armed strangers, various, lounged or lazed, Lithe fellows tall, with gold-shot eyes, Sunning themselves as leopards may. Off-shore lay xebecs trim and light, And some but dubious in repute. But on the strand, for docks were none, What busy bees ! no testy fry ; Frolickers, picturesquely odd, With bales and oil-jars lading boats, Lighters that served an anchored craft, Each in his tasseled Phrygian cap, Blue Eastern drawers and braided vest ; And some with features cleanly cut As Proserpine's upon the coin. Such chatterers all ! like children gay Who make believe to work, but play. I saw, and how help musing too. Here traffic 's immature as yet : Forever this juvenile fun hold out Disinterment of the Hermes. 65 And these light hearts ? Their garb, their glee, Alike profuse in flowing measure, Alike inapt for serious work, Blab of grandfather Saturn's prime When trade was not, nor toil, nor stress, But life was leisure, merriment, peace, And lucre none and love was righteousness. DISINTERMENT OF THE HERMES. WHAT forms divine in adamant fair- Carven demigod and god, And hero-marbles rivalling these, Bide under Latium's sod, Or lost in sediment and drift Alluvial which the Grecian rivers sift. To dig for these, O better far Than raking arid sands For gold more barren meetly theirs Sterile, with brimming hands. 66 The Apparition. THE APPARITION. (The Parthenon uplifted on its rock first challenging the view on the approach to Athens.) ABRUPT the supernatural Cross, Vivid in startled air, Smote the Emperor Constantine And turned his soul's allegiance there. With other power appealing down, Trophy of Adam's best ! If cynic minds you scarce convert, You try them, shake them, or molest. Diogenes, that honest heart, Lived ere your date began ; Thee had he seen, he might have swerved In mood nor barked so much at Man. In the Desert. 67 IN THE DESERT. NEVER Pharaoh's Night, Whereof the Hebrew wizards croon, Did so the Theban flamens try As me this veritable Noon. Like blank ocean in blue calm Undulates the ethereal frame ; In one flowing oriflamme God flings his fiery standard out. Battling with the Emirs fierce Napoleon a great victory won, Through and through his sword did pierce ; But, bayonetted by this sun His gunners drop beneath the gun. Holy, holy, holy Light ! Immaterial incandescence, Of God the effluence of the essence, Shekinah intolerably bright ! 68 The Great Pyramid. THE GREAT PYRAMID. Your masonry-and is it man's ? More like some Cosmic artisan's. Your courses as in strata rise, Beget you do a blind surmise Like Grampians. Far slanting up your sweeping flank Arabs with Alpine goats may rank, And there they find a choice of passes Even like to dwarfs that climb the masses Of glaciers blank. Shall lichen in your crevice fit ? Nay, sterile all and granite-knit : Weather nor weather-stain ye rue, But aridly you cleave the blue As lording it. Morn's vapor floats beneath your peak, Kites skim your side with pinion weak ; To sand-storms battering, blow on blow, Raging to work your overthrow, You-turn the cheek. The Great Pyramid. 69 All elements unmoved you stem, Foursquare you stand and suffer them : Time's future infinite you dare, While, for the past, 'tis you that wear Eld's diadem. Slant from your inmost lead the caves And labyrinths rumoured. These who braves And penetrates (old palmers said) Comes out afar on deserts dead And, dying, raves. Craftsmen, in dateless quarries dim, Stones formless into form did trim, Usurped on Nature's self with Art, And bade this dumb I AM to start, Imposing him. 70 L' Envoi. L' ENVOI. THE RETURN OF THE SIRE DE NESLE. A.D. 16- My towers at last ! These rovings end, Their thirst is slaked in larger dearth : The yearning infinite recoils, For terrible is earth. Kaf thrusts his snouted crags through fog : Araxes swells beyond his span, And knowledge poured by pilgrimage Overflows the banks of man. But thou, my stay, thy lasting love One lonely good, let this but be ! Weary to view the wide world's swarm, But blest to fold but thee. ---------------------------------------------------- Note: This edition reproduces the 1891 Caxton Press edition of Herman Melville's Timoleon, Etc. Page and line breaks from the original are preserved, as are the spelling, punctuation, and page numbers. Following the typesetting practice of that era, colons, semi-colons, question marks, and exclamation points are preceded by a word space. Paul Royster University of Nebraska-Lincoln November 26, 2005