To doubt that thou wilt mourn me if I fall;
Nor would I tax thy love with such a fear,
But that high promptings, which could never rise
Spontaneous in my nature, bid me plead
Thus boldly for the mission.
It shall be as thou wilt. I see thou 'rt called
To this great peril, and I will not stay thee.
When wilt thou be prepared to seek it?
Only before I go, thus, on my knee,
Let me in one word thank thee for a life
Made by thy love a cloudless holyday;
And O, my more than father! let me look
Up to thy face as if indeed a father's,
And give me a son's blessing!
I should be marble now; let 's part at once.
O grant it be in life! Let's to the sacrifice.
Ion has unconsciously become attached to Clemanthe, the priest's daughter. The interview between them, which closes the first act, is one of the most beautiful passages of the poem.
In the second act, the king admits Ion to his presence, having forewarned him of the fatal consequence of his intrusion. Ion, with a sad constancy, persists in delivering his message. The king is overcome by the noble firmness of the youth, and the memory of past days is revived by tones and looks that remind him of her who has been long lost to him. He yields to the irresistible fascination, and relates to Ion the history of his life; then consents to meet the Sages. Meantime Phocion arrives with the response of the oracle, which he is sworn to deliver first to the king.
The following is a part of the scene between Adrastus and the councillors.
"Upon your summons, Sages, I am here;
Your king attends to know your pleasure; speak it!
And canst thou ask? If the heart dead within thee
Receives no impress of this awful time,
Art thou of sense forsaken? Are thine ears
So charmed by strains of slavish minstrelsy,
That the dull groan and frenzy-pointed shriek
Pass them unheard to Heaven? Or are thine eyes
So conversant with prodigies of grief,
They cease to dazzle at them? Art thou armed
'Gainst wonder, while, in all things, Nature turns
To dreadful contraries; while Youth's full cheek
Is shrivelled into furrows of sad years,
And 'neath its glossy curls untinged by care
Looks out a keen anatomy; while Age
Is stung by feverish torture for an hour
Into youth's strength; - while fragile Womanhood
Starts into frightful courage, all unlike
The gentle strength its gentle weakness feeds
To make affliction beautiful, and stalks
Abroad, a tearless, an unshuddering thing;-
While Childhood, in its orphaned freedom blithe,
Finds, in the shapes of wretchedness which seem
Grotesque to its unsaddened vision, cause
For dreadful mirth that shortly shall be hushed
In never-broken silence; - and while Love,
Immortal through all change, makes ghastly Death
Its idol, and with furious passion digs
Amid sepulchral images for gauds
To cheat its fancy with? Do sights like these
Glare through the realm thou shouldst be parent to,
And canst thou find the voice to ask our pleasure'?
Cease, babbler; wherefore would ye stun my ears
With vain recital of the griefs I know,
And cannot heal?- will treason turn aside
The shafts of fate, or medicine Nature's ills?
I have no skill in pharmacy, nor power
To sway the elements.
To cast thyself upon the earth with us
In penitential shame; or, if this power
Hath left a heart made weak by luxury
And hard by pride, thou hast at least the power
To cease the mockery of thy frantic revels.
I have yet power to punish insult, — look
I use it not, Agenor! - Fate may dash
My sceptre from me, but shall not command
My will to hold it with a feebler grasp;
Nay, if few hours of empire yet are mine,
They shall be colored with a sterner pride,
And peopled with more lustrous joys than flushed
In the serene procession of its greatness,
Which looked perpetual, as the flowing course
Of human things. Have ye beheld a pine
That clasped the mountain-summit with a root
As firm as its rough marble, and, apart
From the huge shade of undistinguished trees,
Lifted its head as in delight to share
The evening glories of the sky, and taste
The wanton dalliance of the heavenly breeze
That no ignoble vapor from the vale
Could mingle with,-smit by the flaming marl,
And lighted for destruction? How it stood
One glorious moment, fringed and wreathed with fire
Which showed the inward graces of its shape,
Uncumbered now, and midst its topmost boughs,
That young Ambition's airy fancies made
Their giddy nest, leaped sportive;- never clad
By liberal summer in a pomp so rich
As waited on its downfall, while it took
The storm-cloud rolled behind it for a curtain
To gird its splendors round, and made the blast
Its minister to whirl its flashing shreds
Aloft towards heaven, or to the startled depths
Of forests that afar might share its doom!
So shall the royalty of Argos pass
In festal blaze to darkness! Have ye spoken?"
- pp. 43-46. The assembly breaks up in confusion, and the king returns to the palace to resume the banquet. His doom is now sealed, and Ion is irresistibly impressed with the conviction that he is to be the avenger.
"O wretched man, thy words have sealed thy doom! Why should I shiver at it, when no way,
Save this, remains to break the ponderous cloud
That hangs above my wretched country? —death, -
A single death, the common lot of all,
Which it will not be mine to look upon,
And yet its ghastly shape dilates before me;
I cannot shut it out; my thoughts grow rigid,
And as that dim and prostrate figure haunts them,
My sinews stiffen like it. Courage, Ion!
No spectral form is here; all outward things
Wear their own old familiar looks; no dye
Pollutes them. Yet the air has scent of blood,
And now it eddies with a hurtling sound,
As if some weapon swiftly clove it. No,
The falchion's course is silent as the grave
That yawns before its victim. Gracious powers!
If the great duty of my life be near,
Grant it may be to suffer, not to strike!"
The third act opens with a dialogue between Ion and Clemanthe.
"Nay, I must chide this sorrow from thy brow,
Or 't will rebuke my happiness; - I know
Too well the miseries that hem us round;
And yet the inward sunshine of my soul,
Unclouded by their melancholy shadows,
Bathes in its deep tranquillity one image,
One only image, which no outward storm
Can ever ruffle. Let me wean thee, then,
From this vain pondering o'er the general woe,
Which makes my joy look ugly.
The gloom that wrongs thy love is unredeemed
By generous sense of others' woe; too sure
It rises from dark presages within,
Then it is most groundless!
Hast thou not won the blessings of the perishing
By constancy, the fame of which shall live
While a heart beats in Argos? hast thou not
Upon one agitated bosom poured
The sweetest peace? and can thy generous nature,
While it thus sheds felicity around it,
To think the assured possession of thy love
With too divine a burden weighed my heart
And pressed my spirits down; but 't is not so;
Nor will I with false tenderness beguile thee,
By feigning that my sadness has a cause
So exquisite. Clemanthe! thou wilt find me
A sad companion; - I, who knew not life,
Save as the sportive breath of happiness,
Now feel my minutes teeming, as they rise,
With grave experiences; I dream no more
Of azure realms, where restless beauty sports
In myriad shapes fantastic; but black vaults
In long succession open till the gloom
Afar is broken by a streak of fire
That shapes my name; the fearful wind, that moans
Before the storm, articulates its sound;
And as I passed but now the solemn range
Of Argive monarchs, that in sculptured mockery
Of present empire sit, their eyes of stone
Bent on me instinct with a frightful life
That drew me into fellowship with them,
As conscious marble; while their ponderous lips, -
Fit organs of eternity, unclosed,
And, as I live to tell thee, murmured
Hail! ION THE DEVOTED!""
A conspiracy is already formed by noble Argive youths to put the king to death. The place of meeting is a deep wood,
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