STUDIES FROM THE ANTIQUE.

1864.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

WHEN the first edition of Studies from the Antique' was published, the Author was in America, and had no opportunity of learning distinctly what opinions the infallible reviewers had passed upon his work. He never heard what good, if any, was said of it, but was informed very naturally, though quite incidentally, that certain sledge-hammer critics-amiable cynics and weekly snarlers-had utterly misunderstood the meaning of the poems, and attributed to him either an ignorance of the mythology of Greece, or a perversion of that mythology to a purpose at variance with its essential spirit; and that one great professor of the art of making a dinner out of pickles and mustard, without beef, had been pleased to express himself as especially dissatisfied with the mention of the river Meander in the poem entitled Marsyas.' On the principle of Fas est ab hoste doceri, as well as out of deference to superior geographical memory, the Author has put himself right with regard to the offended stream, and omitted all mention of it in a passage where its presence was by no means necessary. With regard to the incapacity of his censors to discover his purpose in making the myths of old civilization the medium of expressing the truths that are neither new nor old, but that flourish in immortal youth in all ages and countries, he cannot but say that the particular millstone was not very difficult to see through, and that it had a large hole in its centre, through which the most shortsighted might have been enabled to look, if they had taken the trouble. The ideas that underlie the beautiful mythology of Greece spring from fountains that are perpetually flowing in the human mind. The spiritual truths which they embody are always latent in the imagination of thoughtful men in all ages. The idea of 'Fate'-good to the good, and bad to the bad, as portrayed in the Vision of Thales on the Judgment-Seat; of Proteus, as the embodiment of poetic genius; of a Golden Age, passed away to return no more, but leaving Eternal Justice to rule the world, as described in Astrea; of indomitable will rising superior to Fate, as shadowed forth in Enceladus; of the blessing and beauty of Death, as pictured in Chiron; of the futility and inutility of gold, as compared with health and the enjoyment of life, as set forth in the Wish of Midas;-all these are as pertinent to the nineteenth century after, as they were to the ninth or to the nineteenth before the Christian era, and recommend themselves to the intellect and the heart of one age as completely as to those of any other. Such truths are independent of time and change: the essence remains the same, though the forms they assume may vary. The Greeks knew nothing (as far as we can discover) of geology, or of that theory of modern science which supposes that the ocean was once the dry land, and the dry land the ocean, and that these permutations follow a certain

and invariable law, which converts the pole into the equator, and the equator into the pole, in countless and almost unimaginable spaces and gulfs of time; yet the Author considers that the sea-nymph Dynamene may not inaptly be made the medium by which the idea may be conveyed, in a manner different from that employed by science, though quite as correct, and possibly more suggestive and attractive. The poems, such as they are, were written in the most reverent spirit—not as finding new meanings in the old myths, but suggesting that, out of the infinite interpretations of which they are susceptible, some might happen to fit the sorrows and the aspirations, and record the experience, of our time. LONDON, February, 1867.

THE EUMENIDES:

A VISION OF THALES.

I, THALES, sitting on the seat of Judgment,
And striving to distinguish Truth from Falsehood,
To uncoil the tangled knot of human Error,
And solve the riddle of capricious Fortune,

Beheld a vision.

Suddenly before me,

Instead of busy mart and swarming people,
I saw on level of mine eyes, uplifted,

A mountain summit, bathed in light Eternal,
With sharp cold pinnacles of ice and granite,

'Mid which there stood, each touching close the other, 1
Three thrones of adamant with golden footstools,
And on them seated three celestial maidens,

In robes of gray, with crowns upon their foreheads,
And in their pale white hands three silver sceptres.

Most beautiful they were, but sad and solemn.
Their brows were heavy with supernal wisdom;
Their deep dark eyes shone passionless and star-like,
As if the great world-pageant spread beneath them,
And mirror'd in their orbs, were but the shadow
Of mighty purpose hidden in the silence

Of their inscrutable will, on which for ever

And evermore they turn'd their inward glances.
Serene and calm they seem'd, and yet most mournful;
As men might be if God had given them knowledge
Of Misery to come, but had denied them

All right or power to lessen or avert it.

I gazed with awe-not terror-at their
presence,
And saw, beyond the peak, revolving slowly,
A mighty wheel, that seem'd of mist and vapour,
Built up intangible. Unceasing ever,

It roll'd and whirl'd.

Moving each one her

And I beheld the maidens

foot, as on a treadle;

And, dimly glittering in the icy sunshine,
And slender as the gossamer web, dew-laden,

Three filmy threads, that met beneath their footstools,
And turn'd the shadowy wheel through storm and sunshine.

Suspicious of my reason, or mine eyesight,

I watch'd; and suddenly, with dull effulgence,
Red as new iron beaten on the anvil,

It glimmer'd into shape and palpable substance;
Then, bursting into flame from tire to axle,
It lighted Earth and Heaven with crimson glory,
Too dazzling for mine eyes. I shut them slowly,
And when I look'd again the clouds had gather'd,
And the great wheel revolved in mist and darkness
Impalpable, and ominous of evil,

Huge as a planet wandering from its orbit,
Foreboding Plague and War or coming Chaos.

The three calm sisters saw me not, nor heeded:
But gazing there alone, and sore bewilder'd,
I felt the need of human speech and counsel,
And found them suddenly. Beside me standing,
Partakers with me of the heavenly vision,
I saw a little child, a five-year infant,
With mild blue eyes and hair of golden lustre ;
A youth in prime of over-lusty vigour;

And an old man, bow'd down with care and sorrow,
And hoary with the weight of eighty winters.

'See!' said the child, and pluck'd me by the garments,
'How beautiful they are-the lovely maidens-
Smiles on their lips and crowns upon their foreheads!'
The young man shudder'd; his right hand was bloody:
I saw the stains of murder as he raised it
To cover up his eyes. Their hair is snaky,
Their looks assassinate, their breath is poison,
They read my inmost secrets to denounce me.
Oh! let me fly to darkness and the Desert,
To Hell itself, if only to escape them-
The furious, terrible, avenging Horrors!'

The old man sigh'd: "They look on me reproachfulThey speak to me, although thou canst not hear them, And tell me of my miserable errors—

My promise unfulfill'd-my glory tarnish'd

My opportunities misused, perverted,

And lost for ever! More than this; they tell me

Of grievous wrong committed, unatoned for-
Of life that had no object but indulgence
In selfish passion. I would die most gladly
If they would only cease to look upon me,
And let me pass into the quiet Hades,
As the stone sinks into the deep sea caverns,
And lies untroubled and forgot for ever.'

'Behold the Sisters Three!' a soft voice whisper'd, Far in the upper air, or in my spirit:

'Behold the Fates! the dreadful yet auspicious;
Regents of Earth and Heaven, of Man and Nature;
Good to the good, and terrible to the wicked,
Just and inflexible. Behold, and fear not!'

I bow'd my head in silent adoration,
And question'd of myself the secret meaning

Why they were Three? The same still voice responded—
Three but yet one :-the tree, the grass, the flower
Have but one nature and one law to guide them;
The beast hath two-the physical and mental;
But man, their lord, hath three.-Threefold in function,
Threefold in attribute-threefold obedience

He oweth to the gods;-and he who blindly,
Rashly, or wilfully is false to either,

Must pay the penalty in pain and sorrow.

Who breaks the physical law, that law condemns him ;
Who breaks the intellectual, sins and suffers;
And who the moral-highest law of nature-
Must bear the heavier punishment decreed him
By Fate-the Law of God that changes never !'

The still voice spake no more-my soul was silent,
And lifting up my head from mine abasement
I look'd around; and lo! I sat in judgment
On mine accustom'd seat, and heard around me
The murmur of the people.-Heed the vision,
Ye who come up to me to plead for Justice!
Those who miscall the pleasant Fates, the Furies,
Condemu themselves.

The Fates are as we make them.

ASTRÆA;

OR, THE DEPARTURE OF THE GODS.

THERE pass'd a shadow on the noonday sun,
And all the populous cities of the East
Pour'd upon housetop, tower, and battlement
Their countless multitudes, to watch and pray.

The mountaineer stood sunward on the cliff,
Or knelt in terror as the shadow grew;
And fear-pale shepherds gather'd on the plains,
And smote their breasts, or whisper'd, each to each,
Of mighty change, and prophecy fulfill'd.

From deepest gloom of overhanging boughs
Came the scared foresters to open glades,

That they might gaze upon the ominous Noon;
And having seen it, cover up their eyes
To wait in darkness the impending stroke
Of vague, unknown, inevitable Doom.

Far on the Euxine and Egean seas
Adventurous sailors, hopelessly becalm'd,
Look'd at the useless helm or idle sail,
And call'd upon the gods of wave and wind,
And sea-nymphs, hidden in their coral caves,
To aid them in extremity forlorn :-

The gods and nymphs had sorrows of their own
Keener than mortal griefs, and heard them not.

There was a sense of pain upon the world:
Wild beasts grew tame for terror; timid birds
Flew to men's bosoms for security;

The trembling lion herded with the kine;
The flow'rets closed their petals; and the leaves
And pendulous foliage of the forest trees
Quiver'd no more, but hung as carved in stone.

The Darkness gather'd ;-darker at full Noon
Than in the dense opaque of starless night;
And all the people of all climes and tongues,
Moan'd infant-like, and wrung their clammy hands,
Or lay upon the sward as they were dead-
Save a few priests, and sages, and old men,

Who hoped or pray'd; and some few babes that slept.

Light broke at last; a sudden haze of beams: Lurid and fitful;-now like tongues of flame, Speaking in thunder; now like blazing stars Cast from their place, and reeling to the Earth, In fellowship of ruin; now like swords Unsheath'd, titanic, from Orion's belt, And splintering into comets as they clash'd; Now shooting up o'er all the western sky In one pale, solemn, luminous Cross of Fire That fill'd the Universe with tender light, And made men hopeful-though they knew not why.

It gleam'd, it shone, it dimm'd, it disappear'd! But left behind o'er all the purpling Heaven The mellow twilight of a coming Day, On which were shadow'd as on Magic Glass Phantasmal multitudes, and warring hosts Of stature huge; huger a hundred-fold Than white-peak'd Atlas, Alp, or AraratWho wheel'd, and reel'd, and struggled hand to hand For mastery and dominion, and sole power Over the Earth and Men. Perchance for Truth, Perchance for Falsehood, strove the combatants; But whether Truth or Falsehood, Right or Wrong,