Chapter II: Epilogue: 118

GREEK WAYFARERS

TO THE AMAZONS AT EPÍDAUROS

Ride, Amazons, ride!
Militant women, careless of tunic and limb;
Sinuous torsos, naked legs boy-like and pressed
Close to the warm horse’s flank, while the wild battle-hymn
Fixes the eyes with the far-reaching look of the quest;
Caring no more for the places of mother and bride;
Ride, Amazons, ride!

Ride, Amazons, ride!
Arrow-swift warriors galloping over the plain,
Feverish, urged ever onward with furious rage;
War-fretted golden-hair tangled with wind-fretted mane;
One-breasted heroines, vigorous, quick to engage,
Hot with the vigor of pulsating, vehement pride--
Ride, Amazons, ride!

Ride, Amazons, ride!
Penthesilèa falls by Achilles’ drawn bow.
Fell she, the Queen, by the white tents of bold Priam’s side?
Leaderless women, on to the battle ye go--
Plunging on, speeding on; galloping Vengeance, astride
Horses that feel ye victorious, with gods allied--
Ride, Amazons, ride!

Ride, Amazons, ride!
Fearless stone-women, ardent and flushed with the race,
Gleaming like swords, ruthless of body and breast;
Nothing shall utterly quell ye, nor wholly deface,
Ye shall ride onward forever, on ultimate quest.
Spirited! Splendid! Time shall not turn ye aside.
Ride, Amazons, ride!

THE BLACK SAIL

How did it seem, that warm thyme-scented day
When emerald figs hung swelling in the dark
Rose-nippled glooms of laurel and of bay,
And pomegranate flowers burned their spark
Through cypresses, to wait ’neath temple frieze,
Scanning the hermless highways of the seas,

Watching for one white canvas far away,
And when the morning seemed to grow so late,
Going, amaracus and grapes to lay
With reeds and gums on Nike’s stylobate,
Muttering: “’Tis the Day--he cannot fail!”
Then on a sudden, seeing--the black sail!

WIDOWED ANDROMACHE

“Full in the morning sun I saw him first
And followed him through meadows, flower-massed,
All his steep, toilsome ways, I, too, traversed;
After his battles all his wounds I nursed,
From our tent gazing to the cities passed.

“Then, to the Trojan walls, where battle burned
And every altar had a bloody rim,
I trod his ardent footsteps, though I yearned
For fields so free; but until back he turned
My only way was onward, after him.

“The summons came while I was following, true,
Eager, alert, though bruised by thorn and stone.
Had he but paused to tell me, ere he drew
His cloak about him, what I was to do,
I would have kept the path, yea, all alone!

“But he was silent, answering not my woe.
He muffled him against my prayers and tears.
I raise my arms, hung with the links of years,
Hung with his broken chains, my right to show
But--o’er his Unknown Paths, I may not go!”

THE SACRED SHIP FROM DELOS

(The Pilot speaks)

“Strange, how I felt the homeward voyage long;
As I looked back to Delos o’er our wake,
And heard the priest’s song, saw our sails out-shake
Under the round sun hanging like a gong
Mid-heaven. All night long I lay on deck
Remembering how he taught us in the Porch;
Yet, the black waters’ phosphorescent torch
Gave me no Sign, no word in white foam-fleck.

“When we passed Sunion, methought I saw
Red fires burning ’mid the holy white
Of sacred columns; but the Athenian law
I did not know! And then, the reef’s long jaw
Foamed at us. Through the hollow night
We fared, unwitting; putting forth our might;
Speeding with oars our fated way upon,
Till the white Dawn ensilvered Phaleron.

“At the Piræus, when I saw the throng,--
Crito and Phædo, there, to meet us,--I
Gave myself no portentous reason why,
But thought: ‘He’s free!’ (Forsooth he did no wrong)
Then I remembered lofty words he said
Of freedom as its dangerous truth he read,--
Great Zeus! The cowards might as well indict
Sea-circled priest or mountain anchorite!

“Crito it was who told me, voice all raw
With grief, and on my shoulder his kind hand:
He saw me flinch,--‘Tremblest?’ he said, ‘Nay, stand
Here in the shadow. ’Twas _thy_ ship they saw,
_The Sacred ship from Delos_, ere they gave
The signal for the hemlock--and his grave!
He drank the cup: the while, methought, thy prow
Would have steered Hades-ward, didst thou but know.’

“I made no sign. No trite word left my lip.
I turned from Crito, and saw Phædo, grave,
Join him. Alone, I went back to my ship,
Sails furled with garlands riding harbor-wave;
I looked at her, rehearsed the sacred rite,
And purified me; set my torch alight:
‘Socrates! Master!’ I sobbed once; set then
Aflame the Sacred Ship of Ill-Omen!”

THE LITTLE SHADE

No longer that grey visage fix,
Charon,
Asking me how I come to mix
With this pale boat-load on the Styx,
Charon.

I am so very small a Shade,
Charon,
Holding the vase my father made
And toys of silver all inlaid,
Charon.

Ferry me to the golden trees,
Charon,
To isles of childish play and ease
And baths of dove-like Pleiades,
Charon.

Ferry me to the azure lands,
Charon,
Where some dead mother understands
The lifting of my baby hands,
Charon.

THE CONTRAST

“Neither my Magnesian home, nor Demetrias, my happy country mourned for me, the son of Sotimos; nor did my mother Soso lament me,--for no weakling did I march against my foes.”--_From a painted stele at Volo, Thessaly._

’Tis said, when young Greeks went to die,
Greek mothers would not weep;
And steadfast mien and tearless eye
Controlled themselves to keep.

Ah!--they were trained to bloody deed;
We--in this time so late
That life seemed gentle, know our breed
More tragically great!

Had we foreseen, no tear would fall.
Now mothers, too, could smile ...
Only, we proved men brave ... and dead
In such a little while!

“SHE HAD REVERENCE”

“O Rhadamanthos, or O Minos, if you have judged any other woman as of surpassing worth, so also judge this young wife of Aristomachos and take her to the Islands of the Blessèd. For she had reverence for the gods and a sense of justice sitting in council with her. Talisos, a Cretan city, reared her and this same earth enfolds her dead; thy fate, O Archidíke!”--_From a painted stele in the Museum at Volo._

The dear dead women Browning drew
Lean forth in happy watchfulness;
With them Rossetti’s Starry-tress:
And Tennyson’s royal maidens press
To bring you to their Sacred Few.
Lovely companions wait for you,
Dear _Archidíke_, wife divine,
With asphodels your locks to twine;
Thus crowning with celestial vine
That noble reverence you knew!

THE GLORY

Good Friday Night, Athens, 1914.

Myriad candles windy flaring
Over faces stilled in prayer;
Silken banners, icon-bearing,
Jewelled vestments, laces rare--
All the people in a daze,
Walking in a candle-haze,
Of uplifted pure amaze.
All the people in a stream,
Crowding in an Easter dream;
While choragic song
Pours from out the throng--
“It is the Glory--holy holiday.”
So, smiling, good Athenians say.

Priests in choir, softly singing,
Carry the Pantokrator,
While the city-bells are ringing
In their wild two-toned uproar;
All the people, in a mass,
With the purple-robed Papas,
Bearing crosses made of brass,
Scarlet cap, and fustanelle,
Turkish fez, and bead, and bell,
While choragic song
Leads the trancèd throng.
“It is the Glory--holy holiday,”
So, smiling, good Athenians say.

Colored lights, and dripping torches,
Burn on Lykabettos crags;
In the narrow streets and porches
Whole-sheep roasting never flags.
Bonfires all the country light,
Up to dark Hymettus’ height,
Making all the hillsides bright.
Still the surging crowds advance,
Moving, moving in a trance;
While choragic song
Leads the trancèd throng.
“It is the Glory--holy holiday,”
So, smiling, good Athenians say.

In their wistful majesty,
See them waiting for a sign,
Of religious unity
From the human or divine;
Faithful, yearning, poor, uncouth,
Pagan-born, yet craving truth--
Old grey-heads and stripling youth.
All the people in a stream,
Holding candles in a dream,
While choragic song
Swells throughout the throng.
“It is the Glory--holy holiday,”
This, smiling, good Athenians say.

SUNSET ON THE ACROPOLIS

If ever I have freed me of all time,
Let me so free me now, that I have brought me
Near to these hill-top temples, which have caught me
Up to their soaring heights and Vision wrought me
Of things serene, and stricken, and sublime.

Let me, the titled, spurious Christian, face
This solemn wistfulness of Pagan yearning--
This aspiration of white columns, burning
With golden fires, their pillars deep inurning
The tragic, sunset beauty of the place.

Let me stand silent, under evening skies,
Watching this radiance grown cold and hoary;
In death-white, black-stained ruins, read the story
The Parthenon tells of ancient Grecian glory,
Reiterating beauty as it dies.

Let me stand silently and humbly, there,
Seeking that Unknown God Greeks apprehended;
That, as the temples fade, and day is ended,
My own hope with this ancient faith be blended,
And I be part of this eternal prayer!

THE STREET OF SHOES

(Athens)

Now, while the Bulgars creep in stealthy crews
To Macedonian borders, do they stay
In Athens as they were one April day--
The busy cobblers in “The Street of Shoes”?

I wonder: for the faces leaning there,
Had Oriental heat, the hands that sewed
Had look of readiness; some skillful code
The hammers rapped on leather-scented air.

The old shoemakers, hung about with hide
In cave-like booths, with beads and fringe adrip,
Muttered their restless words beneath the clip
Of shoe-laces, or hammered, sombre-eyed;

Red-capped, white-bearded, keen for petty strife,
They hammered and they stitched; while, might and main
Down their small, narrow, red-morocco lane,
They cut the scarlet shoes with gleaming knife.

How would it go, if mad Bulgarian hordes
Invaded here with pillage and abuse?
I like to think that in the Street of Shoes
Those old, gnarled hands would fiercely leap to swords!

I love to think how fiery faces there
Would light like lurid skies before the storm,
And that Athenian shoemakers would swarm
To guard the city with ferocious care.

Then, if the foe to trample Athens choose,
I pity them if those Greek cobblers still
Stick to their lasts. These would not wait to spill
A brighter red than red-morocco shoes!

Bulgars would know how nimble fingers use
Flayed skin to keep the needles very bright;
They would learn much before they took their flight
Forever from the valiant Street of Shoes!

ON THE ELEUSINIAN WAY--SPRING

Hush! Walk slowly;
All this winding road is holy;
Place your votive image in a niche
By Pass of Daphne, where rocks forward pitch.
Now, sit lowly--
Under dim firs that cool the dust-white way
Curving from Athens to Eleusis Bay.

Soft! Speak lightly!
See’st this myriad Concourse? all the sprightly
Luminous Mystæ? Naked flower forms
Dancing in close commingled color-swarms
So brightly?
Follow them in their green-hot Mænad flame,
Their sweet mysterious rapture of no name.

Watch! Far-seeing
Demeter’s yellow torches fitful fleeing.
And seed processions moving towards the shrine
Where motion, moisture, act in soft sunshine;
And being
Earth-taught, flower-figures of desire
Sway toward white Oreads quick with fire.

Take, unceasing
Joy of powers these Mystæ are releasing
Eternal, they, who seem so lovely-brief.
Soft luminous shapes of petal and of leaf
Increasing,
They sweep across Semele’s ancient fields
Handing the torch the calm Earth-mother yields.

Yea--the senses
Have their holy truths and recompenses
Sweetly simple may their teachings be
“Wine flashing clusters from a sacred tree”;
Defences
From all our sorry wisdoms have these flowers
Who teach deep truths with Dionysiac powers!

IN THE ROOM OF THE FUNERAL STELÆ

(Athens Museum)

O’er all the world I wandered with my grief,
My human grief, that would not be forgot,
Finding no face, no word, nor any spot
Where haunted heart and brain could find relief.

Until the morning I unwitting stept
Into the stelæ-halls and the great peace
Of the Greek sorrow over Life’s surcease
Enveloped me, even in woe inept.

Here, marble love in simple human sense
To nearest friend gives earthly treasure up,
A matron handing maid a box or cup;
A man from dog and slave turning him hence;

A soldier springing out into the dark;
A wife slow fading in her husband’s arms;
The inexorable Fact, its vague alarms
And Love grown suddenly aloof and stark!

Yet no breast-beating here, nor frantic woe,
Nor bitter tears, nor loud outcry of pain.
Only the question: “Will they live again?
Go they forever from us, when they go?”

Majestic sorrowers the figures stand,
Absorbed in contemplation of One Thing ...
No promises, nor priestly counselling,
Only the longing eyes and clasping hand!

Down the long halls I wandered; Athens’ Spring
Radiant without, with almonds’ rosy spray,
And violets crowding on the hills. That day
My dead heart stirred to marble comforting!

For the Greeks _knew_! Death is the only thing
That keeps its dignity. So Death they met
Ready to pay to him a subject’s debt;
Going out awe-struck as to meet a King.

The Greeks _knew_! nothing any more can heal
The heart Death once despoils of sorrowing.
With proud simplicity they felt the sting,
Then wore the mystery like sacred seal!

Calm-eyed, controlled, those marble figures gaze
Into the depths no mortal eyes have known,
Then, Grecian head thrown back, the world is shown
Sorrow’s transfigured face, immortal ways!

“THE SEVEN-STRINGED MOUNTAIN LUTE”

“Homer, Sappho, Anacreon, Pindar, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the very names are a song.”--M. C. M.

I knew, no matter how they plucked at me
Like golden fingers--all those cadenced names--
That never could I answer; for the power
Of their majestic harmonies was perfect flower.
No greater song, nor lovelier verse could be
Unless Greece lived another golden hour.
I tried to echo them. I vainly sought
Timid expression of their rhythmic fire;
My melodies with halting effort caught
Faintly their classic motive and desire.
Yet, while I failed, a miracle was wrought,
Themselves did sing! Thus, humble, I was taught
These names that are the plectrum and the lyre.

GREEK WAYFARERS