Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 - Various - Страница 7

Ye in the age gone by,

Who ruled the world—a world how lovely then!—

And guided still the steps of happy men

In the light leading strings of careless joy!

Ah, flourish'd them your service of delight!

How different, oh, how different, in the day

When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,

O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams

Woven by Song, Truth's youthful beauty glow'd,

And life's redundant and rejoicing streams

Gave to the soulless, soul—where'er they flow'd.

Man gifted Nature with divinity

To lift and link her to the breast of Love;

All things betray'd to the initiate eye

The track of gods above!

Where lifeless—fix'd afar,

A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,

Phœbus Apollo, in his golden car,

In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!

On yonder hill the Oread was adored,

In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;

And from her Urn the gentle Naiad pour'd

The wavelet's silver foam.

Yon bay, chaste Daphnè wreathed,

Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell,

Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,

And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel;

The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill—

Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne;

And, for her lost Adonis, yonder hill

Heard Cytherea mourn!—

Heaven's shapes were charm'd unto

The mortal race of old Deucalion;

Pyrrha's fair daughter, humanly to woo,

Came down, in shepherd-guise, Latona's son.

Between men, heroes, Gods, harmonious then

Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine;

Blest Amathusia, heroes, Gods, and men,

Equals before thy shrine!

Not to that culture gay,

Stern self-denial, or sharp penance wan!

Well might each heart be happy in that day—

For Gods, the Happy Ones, were kin to Man!

The Beautiful alone, the Holy there!

No pleasure shamed the Gods of that young race;

So that the chaste Camœnæ favouring were,

And the subduing Grace!

A palace every shrine;

Your very sports heroic;—Yours the crown

Of contests hallow'd to a power divine,

As rush'd the chariots thund'ring to renown.

Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,

Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair

Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed

Sweet leaves round odorous hair!

The lively Thyrsus-swinger,

And the wild car the exulting Panthers bore,

Announced the Presence of the Rapture-Bringer—

Bounded the Satyr and blithe Fawn before;

And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,

Hymn'd, in their madding dance, the glorious wine—

As ever beckon'd to the lusty bowl

The ruddy Host divine!

Before the bed of death

No ghastly spectre stood—but from the porch

Of life, the lip—one kiss inhaled the breath,

And the mute graceful Genius lower'd a torch.

The judgment-balance of the Realms below,

A judge, himself of mortal lineage, held;

The very Furies at the Thracian's woe,

Were moved and music-spell'd.

In the Elysian grove

The shades renew'd the pleasures life held dear:

The faithful spouse rejoin'd remember'd love,

And rush'd along the meads the charioteer;

There Linus pour'd the old accustom'd strain;

Admetus there Alcestes still could greet; his

Friend there once more Orestes could regain,

His arrows—Philoctetes!

More glorious then the meeds

That in their strife with labour nerved the brave,

To the great doer of renownèd deeds,

The Hebe and the Heaven the Thunderer gave.

To him the rescued Rescuer of the dead,

Bow'd down the silent and Immortal Host;

And the Twin Stars their guiding lustre shed,

On the bark tempest-tost!

Art thou, fair world, no more?

Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face;

Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore,

Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace!

The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;

Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft;

Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,

Shadows alone are left!

Cold, from the North, has gone

Over the Flowers the Blast that kill'd their May;

And, to enrich the worship of the One,

A Universe of Gods must pass away!

Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,

But thee no more, Selene, there I see!

And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,

And—Echo answers me!

Deaf to the joys she gives—

Blind to the pomp of which she is possest—

Unconscious of the spiritual Power that lives

Around, and rules her—by our bliss unblest—

Dull to the Art that colours or creates,

Like the dead timepiece, Godless Nature creeps

Her plodding round, and, by the leaden weights,

The slavish motion keeps.

To-morrow to receive

New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;

And icy moons, with weary sameness, weave

From their own light their fullness and decay:

Home to the Poet's land the Gods are flown;

Light use in them that later world discerns,

Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,

On its own axle turns.

Home!—and with them are gone

The hues they gazed on, and the tones they heard,

Life's beauty and life's melodies—alone

Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless Word!

Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng,

Unseen, the Pindus they were wont to cherish,

Ah—that which gains immortal life in song

To mortal life must perish!