Chapter XLIX: Epilogue: To the Two Poets of Croisic

What a pretty tale you told me
Once upon a time
--Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)
Was it prose or was it rhyme,
Greek or Latin? Greek, you said, 5
While your shoulder propped my head.

Anyhow there's no forgetting
This much if no more,
That a poet (pray, no petting!)
Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10
Went where suchlike used to go,
Singing for a prize, you know.

Well, he had to sing, nor merely
Sing but play the lyre;
Playing was important clearly 15
Quite as singing--I desire,
Sir, you keep the fact in mind
For a purpose that's behind.

There stood he, while deep attention
Held the judges round, 20
--Judges able, I should mention,
To detect the slightest sound
Sung or played amiss--such ears
Had old judges, it appears!

None the less he sang out boldly, 25
Played in time and tune,
Till the judges, weighing coldly
Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon,
Sure to smile, "In vain one tries
Picking faults out; take the prize!" 30

When, a mischief! Were they seven
Strings the lyre possessed?
Oh, and afterwards eleven,
Thank you! Well, sir--who had guessed
Such ill luck in store?--it happed 35
One of those same seven strings snapped.

All was lost, then! No! a cricket
(What "cicada"? Pooh!)
--Some mad thing that left its thicket
For mere love of music--flew 40
With its little heart on fire,
Lighted on the crippled lyre.

So that when (ah, joy!) our singer
For his truant string
Feels with disconcerted finger, 45
What does cricket else but fling
Fiery heart forth, sound the note
Wanted by the throbbing throat?

Aye and, ever to the ending,
Cricket chirps at need, 50
Executes the hand's intending,
Promptly, perfectly--indeed
Saves the singer from defeat
With her chirrup low and sweet.

Till, at ending, all the judges 55
Cry with one assent,
"Take the prize--a prize who grudges
Such a voice and instrument?
Why, we took your lyre for harp,
So it shrilled us forth F sharp!" 60

Did the conqueror spurn the creature,
Once its service done?
That's no such uncommon feature
In the case when Music's son
Finds his Lotte's power too spent 65
For aiding soul-development.

No! This other, on returning
Homeward, prize in hand,
Satisfied his bosom's yearning
(Sir, I hope you understand!) 70
--Said, "Some record there must be
Of this cricket's help to me!"

So, he made himself a statue:
Marble stood, life-size;
On the lyre he pointed at you 75
Perched his partner in the prize;
Never more apart you found
Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

That's the tale--its application?
Somebody I know 80
Hopes one day for reputation
Through his poetry that's--oh,
All so learned and so wise
And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket, 85
When his statue's built,
Tell the gazer, "'Twas a cricket
Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt
Sweet and low, when strength usurped
Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped? 90

"For as victory was nighest,
While I sang and played--
With my lyre at lowest, highest,
Right alike--one string that made
'Love' sound soft was snapped in twain, 95
Never to be heard again--

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered,
Perched upon the place
Vacant left, and duly uttered,
'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 100
Asked the treble to atone
For its somewhat somber drone."

But you don't know music! Wherefore
Keep on casting pearls
To a--poet? All I care for 105
Is--to tell him that a girl's
"Love" comes aptly in when gruff
Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

PHEIDIPPIDES

[Greek: Chairete, nikômen.]

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!
Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honor to all!
Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, coequal in praise
--Aye, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the ægis and spear!
Also ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer, 5
Now, henceforth and forever--O latest to whom I upraise
Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!
Present to help, potent to save, Pan--patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!
See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no specter that speaks! 10
Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you,
"Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!
Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed,
Ran and raced; like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,
Was the space between city and city. Two days, two nights did 15
I burn
Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke; breath served but for "Persia has come!
Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;
Razed to the ground is Eretria--but Athens, shall Athens sink,
Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas utterly die, 20
Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the
stander-by?
Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er
destruction's brink?
How--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some--
Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens--Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond? 25
Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,
Malice--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!
Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood
Quivering--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry
wood--
"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? 30
Thunder, thou Zeus! Athené, are Spartans a quarry beyond
Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 'Ye must'!"
No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last!

"Has Persia come--does Athens ask aid--may Sparta befriend?
Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake! 35
Count we no time lost time which lags through respect to the gods!
Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds
In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take
Full circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast:
Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend." 40

Athens--except for that sparkle--thy name, I had moldered to ash!
That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away was I back,
--Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!
Yet "O gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain,
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, 45
"Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile?
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay--I bid you cease to enwreathe
Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot, 50
You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!
Rather I hail thee, Parnes--trust to thy wild waste tract!
Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked
My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave
No deity deigns to drape with verdure? At least I can breathe, 55
Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge;
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: 60
"Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?
Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus I obey--
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge
Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan! 65
Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof;
All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe,
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.
"Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl. 70
"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious began;
"How is it--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?
Aye, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me! 75
Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith
In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith:
When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--is cast in the sea,
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and 80
the bold!'

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'"
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear
--Fennel--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode)
"While, as for thee" ... But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto--
Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but 85
flew.
Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road;
Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!
Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

* * * * *

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of Greece,
Whose limbs did duty indeed--what gift is promised thyself? 90
Tell it us straightway--Athens the mother demands of her son!"
Rosily blushed the youth; he paused; but, lifting at length
His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his
strength
Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done
Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release 95
From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow--
Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep,
Whelm her away forever; and then--no Athens to save-- 100
Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave--
Hie to my house and home; and, when my children shall creep
Close to my knees--recount how the God was awful yet kind,
Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

* * * * *

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day; 105
So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Akropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield,
Ran like fire once more; and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, 110
Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute
Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.
So is Pheidippides happy forever--the noble strong man 115
Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved
so well;
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,
So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute:
"Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his 120
meed.

MULÉYKEH

If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried, "A churl's!"
Or haply, "God help the man who has neither salt nor bread!"
--"Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs nor pity nor scorn
More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, picking pearls,
--Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead 5
On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes morn.

"What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinán?
They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due,
Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old.
'God gave them, let them go! But never since time began, 10
Muléykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you,
And you are my prize, my Pearl; I laugh at men's land and gold!'

"So in the pride of his soul laughs Hóseyn--and right, I say.
Do the ten steeds run a race of glory? Outstripping all,
Ever Muléykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. 15
Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, that day.
'Silence,' or, last but one, is 'The Cuffed,' as we use to call
Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, Hóseyn, I say, to
laugh!"

"Boasts he Muléykeh the Pearl?" the stranger replies: "Be sure
On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both 20
On Duhl the son of Sheybán, who withers away in heart
For envy of Hóseyn's luck. Such sickness admits no cure.
A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an oath,
'For the vulgar--flocks and herds! The Pearl is a prize apart.'"

Lo, Duhl the son of Sheybán comes riding to Hóseyn's tent, 25
And he casts his saddle down, and enters and "Peace!" bids he.
"You are poor, I know the cause: my plenty shall mend the wrong.
'Tis said of your Pearl--the price of a hundred camels spent
In her purchase were scarce ill paid; such prudence is far from me
Who proffer a thousand. Speak! Long parley may last too 30
long."

Said Hóseyn, "You feed young beasts a many, of famous breed,
Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Múzennem:
There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it climbs the hill.
But I love Muléykeh's face; her forefront whitens indeed
Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels--go gaze on 35
them!
Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the richer still."

A year goes by; lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl.
"You are open-hearted, aye--moist-handed, a very prince.
Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your simple gift!
My son is pined to death for her beauty; my wife prompts, 40
'Fool,
Beg for his sake the Pearl! Be God the rewarder, since
God pays debts seven for one; who squanders on Him shows thrift.'"

Said Hóseyn, "God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives
That lamp due measure of oil; lamp lighted--hold high, wave wide
Its comfort for others to share! once quench it, what help is 45
left?
The oil of your lamp is your son, I shine while Muléykeh lives.
Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if Muléykeh died?
It is life against life--what good avails to the life-bereft?"

Another year, and--hist! What craft is it Duhl designs?
He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last time, 50
But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the trench
Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night combines
With the robber--and such is he: Duhl, covetous up to crime,
Must wring from Hóseyn's grasp the Pearl, by whatever the wrench.

"He was hunger-bitten, I heard; I tempted with half my store, 55
And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring dew?
Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one!
He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he rode; nay,
more--
For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two--
I will beg! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife and 60
son.

"I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never wash
Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then guile,
And now I resort to force. He said we must live or die;
Let him die, then--let me live! Be bold--but not too rash!
I have found me a peeping-place; breast, bury your breathing 65
while
I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He deceived me not, the spy!

"As he said--there lies in peace Hóseyn--how happy! Beside
Stands tethered the Pearl; thrice winds her headstall about his
wrist;
'Tis therefore he sleeps so sound--the moon through the roof reveals.
And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known far and 70
wide,
Buhéyseh, her sister born; fleet is she yet ever missed
The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous heels.

"No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in case some
thief
Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean to do.
What then? The Pearl is the Pearl--once mount her we both 75
escape."
Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl--so a serpent disturbs no leaf
In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest; clean through,
He is noiselessly at his work; as he planned, he performs the rape.

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as 80
before,
He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like bolt from
bow.
Up starts our plundered man; from his breast though the heart be
ripped,
Yet his mind has the mastery. Behold, in a minute more,
He is out and off and away on Buhéyseh, whose worth we know!

And Hóseyn--his blood turns flame, he has learned long since 85
to ride,
And Buhéyseh does her part--they gain--they are gaining fast
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Dárraj to cross and quit,
And to reach the ridge El-Sabán--no safety till that be spied!
And Buhéyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length off at last,
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of 90
the bit.

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the strange and
queer:
Buhéyseh is mad with hope--beat sister she shall and must,
Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank.
She is near now, nose by tail--they are neck by croup--joy! fear!
What folly makes Hóseyn shout, "Dog Duhl, Damned son of the 95
Dust,
Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank!"

And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muléykeh as prompt perceived
Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey,
And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished for evermore.
And Hóseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved, 100
Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may;
Then he turned Buhéyseh's neck slow homeward, weeping sore.

And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hóseyn upon the ground
Weeping; and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Bénu-Asád
In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his 105
grief;
And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound
His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so bad!
And how Buhéyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief.

And they jeered him, one and all: "Poor Hóseyn is crazed past hope!
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's 110
spite?
To have simply held the tongue were a task for boy or girl,
And here were Muléykeh again, the eyed like an antelope,
The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night!"--
"And the beaten in speed!" wept Hóseyn. "You never have loved my
Pearl."

WANTING IS--WHAT?

Wanting is--what?
Summer redundant,
Blueness abundant,
--Where is the blot?
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same
--Framework which waits for a picture to frame; 5
What of the leafage, what of the flower?
Roses embowering with naught they embower!
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!
Breathe but one breath 10
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love,
Grows love!

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path--how soft to pace!
This May--what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face? 5
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, 10
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast 15
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers; we-- 20
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she
--I and she!

THE PATRIOT

It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad;
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day. 5

The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels--
But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
They had answered, "And afterward, what else?" 10

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do, have I left undone;
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run. 15

There's nobody on the housetops now--
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate--or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 25

Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead.
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me?"--God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay; I am safer so. 30

INSTANS TYRANNUS

I

Of the million or two, more or less,
I rule and possess,
One man, for some cause undefined,
Was least to my mind.