ACTÆON
And then I saw
A manly hunter pace along the lea,
His bow upon his shoulder, and his spear
Poised idly in his hand: the face and form
Of vigorous youth; but in the full brown eyes
A timorous gaze as of a hunted hart,
Brute-like, yet human still, even as the Faun
Of old, the dumb brute passing into man,
And dowered with double nature. As he came
I seemed to question of his fate, and he
Answered me thus:
"'Twas one hot afternoon
That I, a hunter, wearied with my day,
Heard my hounds baying fainter on the hills,
Led by the flying hart; and when the sound
Faded and all was still, I turned to seek,
O'ercome by heat and thirst, a little glade,
Beloved of old, where, in the shadowy wood,
The clear cold crystal of a mossy pool
Lipped the soft emerald marge, and gave again
The flower-starred lawn where ofttimes overspent
I lay upon the grass and careless bathed
My limbs in the sweet lymph.
But as I neared
The hollow, sudden through the leaves I saw
A throng of wood-nymphs fair, sporting undraped
Round one, a goddess. She with timid hand
Loosened her zone, and glancing round let fall
Her robe from neck and bosom, pure and bright,
(For it was Dian's self I saw, none else)
As when she frees her from a fleece of cloud
And swims along the deep blue sea of heaven
On sweet June nights. Silent awhile I stood,
Rooted with awe, and fain had turned to fly,
But feared by careless footstep to affright
Those chaste cold eyes. Great awe and reverence
Held me, and fear; then Love with passing wing
Fanned me, and held my eyes, and checked my breath,
Signing 'Beware!'
So for a time I watched,
Breathless as one a brooding nightmare holds,
Who fleeth some great fear, yet fleeth not;
Till the last flutter of lawn, and veil no more
Obscured, and all the beauty of my dreams
Assailed my sense. But ere I raised my eyes,
As one who fain would look and see the sun,
The first glance dazed my brain. Only I knew
The perfect outline flow in tender curves,
To break in doubled charms; only a haze
Of creamy white, dimple, and deep divine:
And then no more. For lo! a sudden chill,
And such thick mist as shuts the hills at eve,
Oppressed me gazing; and a heaven-sent shame,
An awe, a fear, a reverence for the unknown,
Froze all the springs of will and left me cold,
And blinded all the longings of my eyes,
Leaving such dim reflection still as mocks
Him who has looked on a great light, and keeps
On his closed eyes the image. Presently,
My fainting soul, safe hidden for awhile
Deep in Life's mystic shades, renewed herself,
And straight, the innocent brute within the man
Bore on me, and with half-averted eye
I gazed upon the secret.
As I looked,
A radiance, white as beamed the frosty moon
On the mad boy and slew him, beamed on me;
Made chill my pulses, checked my life and heat;
Transformed me, withered all my soul, and left
My being burnt out. For lo! the dreadful eyes
Of Godhead met my gaze, and through the mask
And thick disguise of sense, as through a wood,
Pierced to my life. Then suddenly I knew
An altered nature, touched by no desire
For that which showed so lovely, but declined
To lower levels. Nought of fear or awe,
Nothing of love was mine. Wide-eyed I gazed,
But saw no spiritual beam to blight
My brain with too much beauty, no undraped
And awful majesty; only a brute,
Dumb charm, like that which draws the brute to it,
Unknowing it is drawn. So gradually
I knew a dull content o'ercloud my sense,
And unabashed I gazed, like that dumb bird
Which thinks no thought and speaks no word, yet fronts
The sun that blinded Homer—all my fear
Sunk with my shame, in a base happiness.
But as I gazed, and careless turned and passed
Through the thick wood, forgetting what had been,
And thinking thoughts no longer, swift there came
A mortal terror: voices that I knew,
My own hounds' bayings that I loved before,
As with them often o'er the purple hills
I chased the flying hart from slope to slope,
Before the slow sun climbed the Eastern peaks,
Until the swift sun smote the Western plain;
Whom often I had cheered by voice and glance,
Whom often I had checked with hand and thong
Grim followers, like the passions, firing me,
True servants, like the strong nerves, urging me
On many a fruitless chase, to find and take
Some too swift-fleeting beauty; faithful feet
And tongues, obedient always: these I knew,
Clothed with a new-born force and vaster grown,
And stronger than their master; and I thought,
What if they tare me with their jaws, nor knew
That once I ruled them,—brute pursuing brute,
And I the quarry? Then I turned and fled,—
If it was I indeed that feared and fled—
Down the long glades, and through the tangled brakes,
Where scarce the sunlight pierced; fled on and on,
And panted, self-pursued. But evermore
The dissonant music which I knew so sweet,
When by the windy hills, the echoing vales,
And whispering pines it rang, now far, now near,
As from my rushing steed I leant and cheered
With voice and horn the chase—this brought to me
Fear of I knew not what, which bade me fly,
Fly always, fly; but when my heart stood still,
And all my limbs were stiffened as I fled,
Just as the white moon ghost-like climbed the sky,
Nearer they came and nearer, baying loud,
With bloodshot eyes and red jaws dripping foam;
And when I strove to check their savagery,
Speaking with words; no voice articulate came,
Only a dumb, low bleat. Then all the throng
Leapt swift on me, and tare me as I lay,
And left me man again.
Wherefore I walk
Along these dim fields peopled with the ghosts
Of heroes who have left the ways of earth
For this faint ghost of them. Sometimes I think,
Pondering on what has been, that all my days
Were shadows, all my life an allegory;
And, though I know sometimes some fainter gleam
Of the old beauty move me, and sometimes
Some beat of the old pulses; that my fate,
For ever hurrying on in hot pursuit,
To fall at length self-slain, was but a tale
Writ large by Zeus upon a mortal life,
Writ large, and yet a riddle. For sometimes
I read its meaning thus: Life is a chase,
And Man the hunter, always following on,
With hounds of rushing thought or fiery sense,
Some hidden truth or beauty, fleeting still
For ever through the thick-leaved coverts deep
And wind-worn wolds of time. And if he turn
A moment from the hot pursuit to seize
Some chance-brought sweetness, other than the search
To which his soul is set,—some dalliance,
Some outward shape of Art, some lower love,
Some charm of wealth and sleek content and home,—
Then, if he check an instant, the swift chase
Of fierce untempered energies which pursue,
With jaws unsated and a thirst for act,
Bears down on him with clanging shock, and whelms
His prize and him in ruin.
And sometimes
I seem to myself a thinker, who at last,
Amid the chase and capture of low ends,
Pausing by some cold well of hidden thought
Comes on some perfect truth, and looks and looks
Till the fair vision blinds him. And the sum
Of all his lower self pursuing him,
The strong brute forces, the unchecked desires,
Finding him bound and speechless, deem him now
No more their master, but some soulless thing;
And leap on him, and seize him, and possess
His life, till through death's gate he pass to life,
And, his own ghost, revives. But looks no more
Upon the truth unveiled, save through a cloud
Of creed and faith and longing, which shall change
One day to perfect knowledge.
But whoe'er
Shall read the riddle of my life, I walk
In this dim land amid dim ghosts of kings,
As one day thou shalt; meantime, fare thou well."
Then passed he; and I marked him slowly go
Along the winding ways of that weird land,
And vanish in a wood.
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