Saturday's Good Reading: "On Death" by John Keats (in English)

 

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain 's to die.

How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom, which is but to awake.

Tuesday's Serials: "The Epic of Hades" by Lewis Morris (in English) - the end

 

APOLLO

                                                                And then stood forth

The last of the gods I saw, the first in rank

And dignity and beauty, the young god

Who grows not old, the Light of Heaven and Earth,

The Worker from afar, who sends the fire

Of inspiration to the bard and bathes

The world in hues of heaven—the golden link

Between High God and Man.

                                                       With a sweet voice

Whose every note was sweetest melody—

The melody has fled, the words remain—

Apollo sang:

                         "I know how fair the face

Of Purity; I know the treasure of Strength;

I know the charm of Love, the calmer grace

Of Wisdom and of Duteous well-spent lives:

And yet there is a loftier height than these.

 

      There is a Height higher than mortal thought;

There is a Love warmer than mortal love;

There is a Life which taketh not its hues

From Earth or earthly things; and so grows pure

And higher than the petty cares of men,

And is a blessed life and glorified.

 

      Oh, white young souls, strain upward, upward still,

Even to the heavenly source of Purity!

Brave hearts, bear on and suffer! Strike for right,

Strong arms, and hew down wrong! The world hath need

Of all of you—the sensual wrongful world!

 

      Hath need of you, and of thee too, fair Love.

Oh, lovers, cling together! the old world

Is full of Hate. Sweeten it; draw in one

Two separate chords of Life; and from the bond

Of twin souls lost in Harmony create

A Fair God dwelling with you—Love, the Lord!

 

      Waft yourselves, yearning souls, upon the stars;

Sow yourselves on the wandering winds of space;

Watch patient all your days, if your eyes take

Some dim, cold ray of Knowledge. The dull world

Hath need of you—the purblind, slothful world!

 

      Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow round

Of Duty; live, expend yourselves, and make

The orb of Being wheel onward steadfastly

Upon its path—the Lord of Life alone

Knows to what goal of Good; work on, live on:

And yet there is a higher work than yours.

 

      To have looked upon the face of the Unknown

And Perfect Beauty. To have heard the voice

Of Godhead in the winds and in the seas.

To have known Him in the circling of the suns,

And in the changeful fates and lives of men.

 

      To be fulfilled with Godhead as a cup

Filled with a precious essence, till the hand

On marble or on canvas falling, leaves

Celestial traces, or from reed or string

Draws out faint echoes of the voice Divine

That bring God nearer to a faithless world.

 

      Or, higher still and fairer and more blest,

To be His seer, His prophet; to be the voice

Of the Ineffable Word; to be the glass

Of the Ineffable Light, and bring them down

To bless the earth, set in a shrine of Song.

 

      For Knowledge is a barren tree and bare,

Bereft of God, and Duty but a word,

And Strength but Tyranny, and Love, Desire,

And Purity a folly; and the Soul,

Which brings down God to Man, the Light to the world;

He is the Maker, and is blest, is blest!"

 

      He ended, and I felt my soul grow faint

With too much sweetness.

                                                  In a mist of grace

They faded, that bright company, and seemed

To melt into each other and shape themselves

Into new forms, and those fair goddesses

Blent in a perfect woman—all the calm

High motherhood of Heré, the sweet smile

Of Cypris, fair Athené's earnest eyes,

And the young purity of Artemis,

Blent in a perfect woman; and in her arms,

Fused by some cosmic interlacing curves

Of Beauty into a new Innocence,

A child with eyes divine, a little child,

A little child—no more.

                                              And those great gods

Of Power and Beauty left a heavenly form

Strong not to act, but suffer; fair and meek,

Not proud and eager; with soft eyes of grace,

Not bold with joyous youth; and for the fire

Of song, and for the happy careless life,

A sorrowful pilgrimage—changed, yet the same

Only Diviner far; and keeping still

The Life God-lighted and the sacrifice.

 

 

ZEUS

      And when these faded wholly, at my side,

Tho' hidden before by those too-radiant forms,

I was aware once more of her, my guide

Psyche, who had not left me, floating near

On golden wings; and all the plains of heaven

Were left to us, me and my soul alone.

 

      Then when my thought revived again, I said

Whispering, "But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source

And Sire of all the gods."

                                              And she, bent low

With downcast eyes: "Nay. Thou hast seen of Him

All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms

Which are but parts of Him and are indeed

Attributes of the Substance which supports

The Universe of Things—the Soul of the World,

The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source

Into no Sea, His Purity, His Strength,

His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule

Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part

And not the whole, being a finite mind

Too weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou see

All of Him visible to mortal sight,

Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods—

Glorified essences of Human mould,

Who are but Zeus made visible to men—

See Him not wholly, only some thin edge

And halo of His glory; nor know they

What vast and unsuspected Universes

Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those

Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun

Moves with his system, or those darker still

Which not even thus we know, but yet exist

Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk

In the awful Depths of Space; or that which is

Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,

Sown thro' the void—the faintest gleam of light

Which sets itself to Be. And yet is He

There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes

To this our heaven, which is so like to earth

But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows

Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks

It cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,

Thy Life will rush to His—the tiny spark

Absorbed in that full blaze—and what there is

Of mortal fall from thee."

                                               But I: "Oh, soul,

What holdeth Life more precious than to know

The Giver and to die?"

                                            Then she: "Behold!

Look upward and adore."

                                               And with the word,

Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,

The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak

Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare

Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow,

Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at last

It left the summit clear.

                                              Then with a bound,

In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,

I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,

Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me

And flood my being round, and take my life

Into itself. I saw my guide bent down

Prostrate, her wings before her face; and then

No more.

 

 

                      But when I woke from my long trance

Behold, it was no longer Tartarus,

Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bare

And unideal aspect of the fields

Which Spring not yet had kissed—the strange old Earth

So far more fabulous now than in the days

When Man was young, nor yet the mystery

Of Time and Fate transformed it. From the hills,

The long night fled at last, the unclouded sun,

The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, and smote

My sight with rays of gold, and pierced my brain

With too much light ere my entrancèd eyes

Could hide themselves.

                                            And I was on the Earth

Dreaming the dream of Life again, as late

I dreamed the dream of Death.

                                                          Another day

Dawned on the race of men; another world;

New heavens, and new earth.

 

 

                                                          And as I went

Across the lightening fields, upon a bank

I saw a single snowdrop glance, and bring

Promise of Spring; and keeping my old thought

In the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed,

I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to be

Now fair Adonis hasting to the arms

Of his lost love—now sad Persephone

Restored to mother earth—or that high shade

Orpheus, who gave up heaven to save his love,

And is rewarded—or young Marsyas,

Who spent his youth and life for song, and yet

Was happy though in torture—or the fair

And dreaming youth I saw, who still awaits,

Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when he shall see

His fair ideal love. The birds sang blithe;

There came a tinkling from the waking fold;

And on the hillside from the cot a girl

Tripped singing with her pitcher. All the sounds

And thoughts which still are beautiful—Youth, Song,

Dawn, Spring, Renewal—and my soul was glad

Of all the freshness, and I felt again

The youth and spring-tide of the world, and thought,

Which feigned those fair and gracious fantasies.

 

      For every dawn that breaks brings a new world,

And every budding bosom a new life;

These fair tales, which we know so beautiful,

Show only finer than our lives to-day

Because their voice was clearer, and they found

A sacred bard to sing them. We are pent,

Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealth

Of ages of past song. We have no more

The world to choose from, who, where'er we turn,

Tread through old thoughts and fair. Yet must we sing—

We have no choice; and if more hard the toil

In noon, when all is clear, than in the fresh

White mists of early morn, yet do we find

Achievement its own guerdon, and at last

The rounder song of manhood grows more sweet

Than the high note of youth.

                                                      For Age, long Age!

Nought else divides us from the fresh young days

Which men call ancient; seeing that we in turn

Shall one day be Time's ancients, and inspire

The wiser, higher race, which yet shall sing

Because to sing is human, and high thought

Grows rhythmic ere its close. Nought else there is

But that weird beat of Time, which doth disjoin

To-day from Hellas.

                                      How should any hold

Those precious scriptures only old-world tales

Of strange impossible torments and false gods;

Of men and monsters in some brainless dream,

Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked together

By some false skein of song?

                                                     Nay! evermore,

All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writ

Upon the unchanging human heart and soul.

Has Passion still no prisoners? Pine there now

No lives which fierce Love, sinking into Lust,

Has drowned at last in tears and blood—plunged down

To the lowest depths of Hell? Have not strong Will

And high Ambition rotted into Greed

And Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmed

The struggling soul in ruin? Hell lies near

Around us as does Heaven, and in the World,

Which is our Hades, still the chequered souls

Compact of good and ill—not all accurst

Nor altogether blest—a few brief years

Travel the little journey of their lives,

They know not to what end. The weary woman

Sunk deep in ease and sated with her life,

Much loved and yet unloving, pines to-day

As Helen; still the poet strives and sings.

And hears Apollo's music, and grows dumb,

And suffers, yet is happy; still the young

Fond dreamer seeks his high ideal love,

And finds her name is Death; still doth the fair

And innocent life, bound naked to the rock,

Redeem the race; still the gay tempter goes

And leaves his victim, stone; still doth pain bind

Men's souls in closer links of lovingness,

Than Death itself can sever; still the sight

Of too great beauty blinds us, and we lose

The sense of earthly splendours, gaining Heaven.

 

      And still the skies are opened as of old

To the entrancèd gaze, ay, nearer far

And brighter than of yore; and Might is there,

And Infinite Purity is there, and high

Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face

Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love

And Light in one, and a new, reverend Name,

Greater than any and combining all;

And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud,

God set far off, too bright for mortal eyes.

 

      And always, always, with each soul that comes

And goes, comes that fair form which was my guide,

Hovering, with golden wings and eyes divine,

Above the bed of birth, the bed of death,

Still breathing heavenly airs of deathless love.

 

      For while a youth is lost in soaring thought,

And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful,

And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth,

And while a child, and while a flower is born,

And while one wrong cries for redress and finds

A soul to answer, still the world is young!

 

THE END

Tuesday's Serials: "The Epic of Hades" by Lewis Morris (in English) - XIII

 

ATHENÉ

                                                        But while I stood

Expectant, lo! a fair pale form drew near

With front severe, and wide blue eyes which bore

Mild wisdom in their gaze. Great purity

Shone from her—not the young-eyed innocence

Of her whom first I saw, but that which comes

From wider knowledge, which restrains the tide

Of passionate youth, and leads the musing soul

By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knew

My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen,

Who once within her shining Parthenon

Beheld the sages kneel.

                                             She with clear voice

And coldly sweet, yet with a softness too,

As doth befit a virgin:

                                         "She does right

To boast her sway, my sister, seeing indeed

That all things are as by a double law,

And from a double root the tree of Life

Springs up to the face of heaven. Body and Soul,

Matter and Spirit, lower joys of Sense

And higher joys of Thought, I know that both

Build up the shrine of Being. The brute sense

Leaves man a brute; but, winged with soaring thought

Mounts to high heaven. The unembodied spirit,

Dwelling alone, unmated, void of sense,

Is impotent. And yet I hold there is,

Far off, but not too far for mortal reach,

A calmer height, where, nearer to the stars,

Thought sits alone and gazes with rapt gaze,

A large-eyed maiden in a robe of white.

Who brings the light of Knowledge down, and draws

To her pontifical eyes a bridge of gold,

Which spans from earth to heaven.

                                                                   For what were life,

If things of sense were all, for those large souls

And high, which grudging Nature has shut fast

Within unlovely forms, or those from whom

The circuit of the rapid gliding years

Steals the brief gift of beauty? Shall we hold,

With idle singers, all the treasure of hope

Is lost with youth—swift-fleeting, treacherous youth,

Which fades and flies before the ripening brain

Crowns life with Wisdom's crown? Nay, even in youth,

Is it not more to walk upon the heights

Alone—the cold free heights—and mark the vale

Lie breathless in the glare, or hidden and blurred

By cloud and storm; or pestilence and war

Creep on with blood and death; while the soul dwells

Apart upon the peaks, outfronts the sun

As the eagle does, and takes the coming dawn

While all the vale is dark, and knows the springs

Of tiny rivulets hurrying from the snows,

Which soon shall swell to vast resistless floods,

And feed the Oceans which divide the World?

 

      Oh, ecstasy! oh, wonder! oh, delight!

Which neither the slow-withering wear of Time,

That takes all else—the smooth and rounded cheek

Of youth; the lightsome step; the warm young heart

Which beats for love or friend; the treasure of hope

Immeasurable; the quick-coursing blood

Which makes it joy to be,—ay, takes them all

And leaves us naught—nor yet satiety

Born of too full possession, takes or mars!

Oh, fair delight of learning! which grows great

And stronger and more keen, for slower limbs,

And dimmer eyes and loneliness, and loss

Of lower good—wealth, friendship, ay, and Love—

When the swift soul, turning its weary gaze

From the old vanished joys, projects itself

Into the void and floats in empty space,

Striving to reach the mystic source of Things,

The secrets of the earth and sea and air,

The Law that holds the process of the suns,

The awful depths of Mind and Thought; the prime

Unfathomable mystery of God!

 

      Is there, then, any who holds my worship cold

And lifeless? Nay, but 'tis the light which cheers

The waning life! Love thou thy love, brave youth!

Cleave to thy love, fair maid! it is the Law

Which dominates the world, that bids ye use

Your nature; but, when now the fuller tide

Slackens a little, turn your calmer eyes

To the fair page of Knowledge. It is power

I give, and power is precious. It is strength

To live four-square, careless of outward shows,

And self-sufficing. It is clearer sight

To know the rule of life, the Eternal scheme;

And, knowing it, to do and not to err,

And, doing, to be blest."

                                              The calm voice soared

Higher and higher to the close; the cold

Clear accents, fired as by a hidden fire,

Glowed into life and tenderness, and throbbed

As with some spiritual ecstasy

Sweeter than that of Love.

 

 

HERÉ

                                                     But as they died,

I heard an ampler voice; and looking, marked

A fair and gracious form. She seemed a Queen

Who ruled o'er gods and men; the majesty

Of perfect womanhood. No opening bud

Of beauty, but the full consummate flower

Was hers; and from her mild large eyes looked forth

Gentle command, and motherhood, and home,

And pure affection. Awe and reverence

O'erspread me, as I knew my eyes had looked

On sovereign Heré, mother of the gods.

 

      She, with clear, rounded utterance, sweet and calm

"I know Love's fruit is good and fair to see

And taste, if any gain it, and I know

How brief Life's Passion-tide, which when it ends

May change to thirst for Knowledge, and I know

How fair the realm of Mind, wherein the soul

Thirsting to know, wings its impetuous way

Beyond the bounds of Thought; and yet I hold

There is a higher bliss than these, which fits

A mortal life, compact of Body and Soul,

And therefore double-natured—a calm path

Which lies before the feet, thro' common ways

And undistinguished crowds of toiling men,

And yet is hard to tread, tho' seeming smooth,

And yet, tho' level, earns a worthier crown.

 

      For Knowledge is a steep which few may climb,

While Duty is a path which all may tread.

And if the Soul of Life and Thought be this,

How best to speed the mighty scheme, which still

Fares onward day by day—the Life of the World,

Which is the sum of petty lives, that live

And die so this may live—how then shall each

Of that great multitude of faithful souls

Who walk not on the heights, fulfil himself,

But by the duteous Life which looks not forth

Beyond its narrow sphere, and finds its work,

And works it out; content, this done, to fall

And perish, if Fate will, so the great Scheme

Goes onward?

                            Wherefore am I Queen in Heaven

And Earth, whose realm is Duty, bearing rule

More constant and more wide than those whose words

Thou heardest last. Mine are the striving souls

Of fathers toiling day by day obscure

And unrewarded, save by their own hearts,

Mid wranglings of the Forum or the mart;

Who long for joys of Thought, and yet must toil

Unmurmuring thro' dull lives from youth to age;

Who haply might have worn instead the crown

Of Honour and of Fame: mine the fair mothers

Who, for the love of children and of home,

When passion dies, expend their toilful years

In loving labour sweetened by the sense

Of Duty: mine the statesman who toils on

Thro' vigilant nights and days, guiding his State.

Yet finds no gratitude; and those white souls

Who give themselves for others all their years

In trivial tasks of Pity. The fine growths

Of Man and Time are mine, and spend themselves

For me and for the mystical End which lies

Beyond their gaze and mine, and yet is good,

Tho' hidden from men and gods.

                                                              For as the flower

Of the tiger-lily bright with varied hues

Is for a day, then fades and leaves behind

Fairness nor fruit, while the green tiny tuft

Swells to the purple of the clustering grape

Or golden waves of wheat; so lives of men

Which show most splendid; fade and are deceased

And leave no trace; while those, unmarked, unseen,

Which no man recks of, rear the stately tree

Of Knowledge, not for itself sought out, but found

In the dusty ways of life—a fairer growth

Than springs in cloistered shades; and from the sum

Of Duty, blooms sweeter and more divine

The fair ideal of the Race, than comes

From glittering gains of Learning.

                                                              Life, full life,

Full-flowered, full-fruited, reared from homely earth,

Rooted in duty, and thro' long calm years

Bearing its load of healthful energies;

Stretching its arms on all sides; fed with dews

Of cheerful sacrifice, and clouds of care,

And rain of useful tears; warmed by the sun

Of calm affection, till it breathes itself

In perfume to the heavens—this is the prize

I hold most dear, more precious than the fruit

Of Knowledge or of Love."

                                                 The goddess ceased

As dies some gracious harmony, the child

Of wedded themes which single and alone

Were discords, but united breathe a sound

Sweet as the sounds of heaven.