Andromeda, and Other Poems. Charles Kingsley

it was wrought on the heights of Olympus,

      Wrought in the gold-strung loom, by the finger of cunning Athené.

      In it she wove all creatures that teem in the womb of the ocean;

      Nereid, siren, and triton, and dolphin, and arrowy fishes

      Glittering round, many-hued, on the flame-red folds of the mantle.

      In it she wove, too, a town where gray-haired kings sat in judgment;

      Sceptre in hand in the market they sat, doing right by the people,

      Wise: while above watched Justice, and near, far-seeing Apollo.

      Round it she wove for a fringe all herbs of the earth and the water,

      Violet, asphodel, ivy, and vine-leaves, roses and lilies,

      Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean:

      Now from Olympus she bore it, a dower to the bride of a hero.

      Over the limbs of the damsel she wrapt it: the maid still trembled,

      Shading her face with her hands; for the eyes of the goddess were awful.

         Then, as a pine upon Ida when southwest winds blow landward,

      Stately she bent to the damsel, and breathed on her: under her breathing

      Taller and fairer she grew; and the goddess spoke in her wisdom.

         ‘Courage I give thee; the heart of a queen, and the mind of Immortals;

      Godlike to talk with the gods, and to look on their eyes unshrinking;

      Fearing the sun and the stars no more, and the blue salt water;

      Fearing us only, the lords of Olympus, friends of the heroes;

      Chastely and wisely to govern thyself and thy house and thy people,

      Bearing a godlike race to thy spouse, till dying I set thee

      High for a star in the heavens, a sign and a hope to the seamen,

      Spreading thy long white arms all night in the heights of the æther,

      Hard by thy sire and the hero thy spouse, while near thee thy mother

      Sits in her ivory chair, as she plaits ambrosial tresses.

      All night long thou wilt shine; all day thou wilt feast on Olympus,

      Happy, the guest of the gods, by thy husband, the god-begotten.’

         Blissful, they turned them to go: but the fair-tressed Pallas Athené

      Rose, like a pillar of tall white cloud, toward silver Olympus;

      Far above ocean and shore, and the peaks of the isles and the mainland;

      Where no frost nor storm is, in clear blue windless abysses,

      High in the home of the summer, the seats of the happy Immortals,

      Shrouded in keen deep blaze, unapproachable; there ever youthful

      Hebé, Harmonié, and the daughter of Jove, Aphrodité,

      Whirled in the white-linked dance with the gold-crowned Hours and the Graces,

      Hand within hand, while clear piped Phœbe, queen of the woodlands.

      All day long they rejoiced: but Athené still in her chamber

      Bent herself over her loom, as the stars rang loud to her singing,

      Chanting of order and right, and of foresight, warden of nations;

      Chanting of labour and craft, and of wealth in the port and the garner;

      Chanting of valour and fame, and the man who can fall with the foremost,

      Fighting for children and wife, and the field which his father bequeathed him.

      Sweetly and solemnly sang she, and planned new lessons for mortals:

      Happy, who hearing obey her, the wise unsullied Athené.

Eversley, 1852,

      HYPOTHESES HYPOCHONDRIACÆ 1

      And should she die, her grave should be

      Upon the bare top of a sunny hill,

      Among the moorlands of her own fair land,

      Amid a ring of old and moss-grown stones

      In gorse and heather all embosomed.

      There should be no tall stone, no marble tomb

      Above her gentle corse;—the ponderous pile

      Would press too rudely on those fairy limbs.

      The turf should lightly he, that marked her home.

      A sacred spot it would be—every bird

      That came to watch her lone grave should be holy.

      The deer should browse around her undisturbed;

      The whin bird by, her lonely nest should build

      All fearless; for in life she loved to see

      Happiness in all things—

      And we would come on summer days

      When all around was bright, and set us down

      And think of all that lay beneath that turf

      On which the heedless moor-bird sits, and whistles

      His long, shrill, painful song, as though he plained

      For her that loved him and his pleasant hills;

      And we would dream again of bygone days

      Until our eyes should swell with natural tears

      For brilliant hopes—all faded into air!

      As, on the sands of Irak, near approach

      Destroys the traveller’s vision of still lakes,

      And goodly streams reed-clad, and meadows green;

      And leaves behind the drear reality

      Of shadeless, same, yet ever-changing sand!

      And when the sullen clouds rose thick on high

      Mountains on mountains rolling—and dark mist

      Wrapped itself round the hill-tops like a shroud,

      When on her grave swept by the moaning wind

      Bending the heather-bells—then would I come

      And watch by her, in silent loneliness,

      And smile upon the storm—as knowing well

      The lightning’s flash would surely turn aside,

      Nor mar the lowly mound, where peaceful sleeps

      All that gave life and love to one fond heart!

      I talk of things that are not; and if prayers

      By night and day availed from my weak lips,

      Then should they never be! till I was gone,

      Before the friends I loved, to my long home.

      Oh pardon me, if e’er I say too much; my mind

      Too often strangely turns to ribald mirth,

      As though I had no doubt nor hope beyond—

      Or brooding melancholy cloys my soul

      With thoughts of days misspent, of wasted time

      And bitter feelings swallowed up in jests.

      Then strange and fearful thoughts flit o’er my brain

      By indistinctness made more terrible,

      And incubi mock at me with fierce eyes

      Upon my couch: and visions, crude and dire,

      Of planets, suns, millions of miles, infinity,

      Space, time, thought, being, blank nonentity,

      Things

1

  This and the following poem were written at school in early boy-hood.