Her face is lit with splendour, She dwells beyond the skies; But deep, deep and tender Are the tears in her eyes: The angels see them glistening In pity for my load, And--she's waiting there, she's listening, At the turn of the road.
Life like a cruel mistress woos The passionate heart of man, you say, Only in mockery to refuse His love, at last, and turn away.
To me she seems a queen that knows How great is love--but ah, how rare!-- And, pointing heavenward ere she goes, Gives him the rose from out her hair.
[This poem commemorates an event of some years ago, when a young Englishman--still remembered by many of his contemporaries at Oxford--went up into Mount Ida and was never seen again.]
Not cypress, but this warm pine-plumage now Fragrant with sap, I pluck; nor bid you weep, Ye Muses that still haunt the heavenly brow Of Ida, though the ascent is hard and steep: Weep not for him who left us wrapped in sleep At dawn beneath the holy mountain's breast And all alone from Ilion's gleaming shore Clomb the high sea-ward glens, fain to drink deep Of earth's old glory from your silent crest, Take the cloud-conquering throne Of gods, and gaze alone Thro' heaven. Darkling we slept who saw his face no more.
Ah yet, in him hath Lycidas a brother, And Adonaïs will not say him nay, And Thyrsis to the breast of one sweet Mother Welcomes him, climbing by the self-same way: Quietly as a cloud at break of day Up the long glens of golden dew he stole (And surely Bion called to him afar!) The tearful hyacinths and the greenwood spray Clinging to keep him from the sapphire goal, Kept of his path no trace! Upward the yearning face Clomb the ethereal height, calm as the morning star.
Ah yet, incline, dear Sisters, or my song That with the light wings of the skimming swallow Must range the reedy slopes, will work him wrong! And with some golden shaft do thou, Apollo, Show the pine-shadowed path that none may follow; For, as the blue air shuts behind a bird, Round him closed Ida's cloudy woods and rills! Day-long, night-long, by echoing height and hollow, We called him, but our tumult died unheard: Down from the scornful sky Our faint wing-broken cry Fluttered and perished among the many-folded hills.