Men and Women. Robert Browning

the commonalty, yet spent in clear-sighted universal sympathies and kindly mediation between Humanity and its God.

      ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES

1842

      I am a goddess of the ambrosia courts,

      And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed

      By none whose temples whiten this the world.

      Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along;

      I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace;

      On earth I, caring for the creatures, guard

      Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek,

      And every feathered mother's callow brood,

      And all that love green haunts and loneliness.

      Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns

      Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,

      Upon my image at Athenai here;

      And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,

      Was dearest to me. He, my buskined step

      To follow through the wild-wood leafy ways,

      And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts

      Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,

      Neglected homage to another god:

      Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke

      Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched

      A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings,

      Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself

      The son of Theseus her great absent spouse.

      Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage

      Against the fury of the Queen, she judged

      Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart

      An Amazonian stranger's race should dare

      To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord:

      Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll

      The fame of him her swerving made not swerve.

      And Theseus, read, returning, and believed,

      And exiled, in the blindness of his wrath,

      The man without a crime who, last as first,

      Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth,

      Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained

      That of his wishes should be granted three,

      And one he imprecated straight—"Alive

      May ne'er Hippolutos reach other lands!"

      Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince

      Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car

      That give the feet a stay against the strength

      Of the Henetian horses, and around

      His body flung the rein, and urged their speed

      Along the rocks and shingles at the shore,

      When from the gaping wave a monster flung

      His obscene body in the coursers' path.

      These, mad with terror, as the sea-bull sprawled

      Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him

      That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole

      Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed,

      Hippolutos, whose feet were trammelled fast,

      Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein

      Which either hand directed; nor they quenched

      The frenzy of their flight before each trace,

      Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woful car,

      Each boulder-stone, sharp stub and spiny shell,

      Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands

      On that detested beach, was bright with blood

      And morsels of his flesh; then fell the steeds

      Head foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts,

      Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed.

      His people, who had witnessed all afar,

      Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos.

      But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced

      (Indomitable as a man foredoomed)

      That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer,

      I, in a flood of glory visible,

      Stood o'er my dying votary and, deed

      By deed, revealed, as all took place, the truth.

      Then Theseus lay the wofullest of men,

      And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid

      His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed

      To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails.

      So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries,

      Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake

      Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life;

      Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate

      Should dress my image with some faded poor

      Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare object

      Such slackness to my worshippers who turn

      Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand,

      As they had climbed Olumpos to report

      Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne—

      I interposed: and, this eventful night

      (While round the funeral pyre the populace

      Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound

      Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped

      O'er the dead body of their withered prince,

      And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated

      On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab

      'T was bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief—

      As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed

      Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night,

      And the gay fire, elate with mastery,

      Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted jars

      Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,

      And splendid gums like gold) my potency

      Conveyed the perished man to my retreat

      In the thrice-venerable forest here.

      And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now

      The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of fame,

      Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught

      The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,

      To know their secret'st virtue and express

      The saving soul of all: who so has soothed

      With layers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,

      Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,

      And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,

      And laid the strips and lagged ends of flesh

      Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot

      Of every tortured limb—that now he lies

      As if mere sleep possessed him underneath

      These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer,

      Divine presenter of the healing rod,

      Thy