The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas - Bridges Robert

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crimes the gods yet unappeased

       Demand a sacrifice, and the king's son

       Dreads the priest's knife, and all the city mourns. 940

       Or shall I say what shameful fury it was

       With which Poseidon smote Pasiphaë,

       But for neglect of a recorded vow:

       Or how Actæon fared of Artemis

       When he surprised her, most himself surprised:

       And even while he looked his boasted bow

       Fell from his hands, and through his veins there ran

       A strange oblivious trouble, darkening sense

       Till he knew nothing but a hideous fear

       Which bade him fly, and faster, as behind 950

       He heard his hounds give tongue, that through the wood

       Were following, closing, caught him and tore him down.

       And many more thus perished in their prime;

       Lycaon and his fifty sons, whom Zeus

       In their own house spied on, and unawares

       Watching at hand, from his disguise arose.

       And overset the table where they sat

       Around their impious feast and slew them all:

       Alcyonè and Ceyx, queen and king,

       Who for their arrogance were changed to birds: 960

       And Cadmus now a serpent, once a king:

       And saddest Niobe, whom not the love

       Of Leto aught availed, when once her boast

       Went out, though all her crime was too much pride

       Of heaven's most precious gift, her children fair.{32}

       Six daughters had she, and six stalwart sons;

       But Leto bade her two destroy the twelve.

       And somewhere now, among lone mountain rocks

       On Sipylus, where couch the nymphs at night

       Who dance all day by Achelous' stream, 970

       The once proud mother lies, herself a rock,

       And in cold breast broods o'er the goddess' wrong.

       In. Now hush thy fear. See how thou tremblest still.

       Or if thou fear, fear passion; for the freshes

       Of tenderness and motherly love will drown

       The eye of judgment: yet, since even excess

       Of the soft quality fits woman well,

       I praise thee; nor would ask thee less to aid

       With counsel, than in love to share my choice.

       Tho' weak thy hands to poise, thine eye may mark 980

       This balance, how the good of all outweighs

       The good of one or two, though these be us.

       Let not reluctance shame the sacrifice

       Which in another thou wert first to praise.

       Ar. Alas for me, for thee and for our children,

       Who, being our being, having all our having,

       If they fare ill, our pride lies in the dust.

       In. O deem not a man's children are but those

       Out of his loins engendered—our spirit's love

       Hath such prolific consequence, that Virtue 990

       Cometh of ancestry more pure than blood,

       And counts her seed as sand upon the shore.

       Happy is he whose body's sons proclaim

       Their father's honour, but more blest to whom

       The world is dutiful, whose children spring

       Out of all nations, and whose pride the proud

       Rise to regenerate when they call him sire.

       Ar. Thus, husband, ever have I bought and buy

       Nobleness cheaply being linked with thee.

       Forgive my weakness; see, I now am bold; 1000

       Tell me the worst I'll hear and wish 'twere more.{33}

       In. Retire—thy tears perchance may stir again.

       Ar. Nay, I am full of wonder and would hear.

       Pr. Bid me not tell if ye have fear to hear;

       But have no fear. Knowledge of future things

       Can nothing change man's spirit: and though he seem

       To aim his passion darkly, like a shaft

       Shot toward some fearful sound in thickest night,

       He hath an owl's eye, and must blink at day.

       The springs of memory, that feed alike 1010

       His thought and action, draw from furthest time

       Their constant source, and hardly brook constraint

       Of actual circumstance, far less attend

       On glassed futurity; nay, death itself,

       His fate unquestioned, his foretasted pain,

       The certainty foreknown of things unknown,

       Cannot discourage his habitual being

       In its appointed motions, to make waver

       His eager hand, nor loosen the desire

       Of the most feeble melancholy heart 1020

       Even from the unhopefullest of all her dreams.

       In. Since then I long to know, now something say

       Of what will come to mine when I am gone.

       Pr. And let the maid too hear, for 'tis of her

       I speak, to tell her whither she should turn

       The day ye drive her forth from hearth and home.

       In. What say'st thou? drive her out? and we? from home?

       Banish the comfort of our eyes? Nay rather

       Believe that these obedient hands will tear

       The heart out of my breast, ere it do this. 1030

       Pr. When her wild cries arouse the house at night,

       And, running to her bed, ye see her set

       Upright in trancèd sleep, her starting hair

       With deathly sweat bedewed, in horror shaking,

       Her eyeballs fixed upon the unbodied dark,

       Through which a draping mist of luminous gloom{34}

       Drifts from her couch away—when, if asleep,

       She walks as if awake, and if awake

       Dreams, and as one who nothing hears or sees,

       Lives in a sick and frantic mood, whose cause 1040

       She understands not or is loth to tell—

       Ar. Ah, ah, my child, my child!—Dost thou feel aught?

       Speak to me—nay, 'tis nothing—hearken not.

       Pr. Ye then distraught with sorrow, neither knowing

       Whether to save were best or lose, will seek

       Apollo's oracle.

       In. And what the answer?

       Will it discover nought to avert this sorrow?

       Pr. Or else thy whole race perish root and branch.

      

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