Artemis to Actæon (1909)/Orpheus
For works with similar titles, see Orpheus.
III
ORPHEUS
Love will make men dare to die for their beloved. . . Of this Alcestis is a monument . . . for she was willing to lay down her life for her husband . . . and so noble did this appear to the gods that they granted her the privilege of returning to earth . . . but Orpheus, the son of Œagrus, they sent empty away. . . —Plato: The Symposium.
Orpheus the Harper, coming to the gateWhere the implacable dim warder sate,Besought for parley with a shade within,Dearer to him than life itself had been,Sweeter than sunlight on Illyrian sea,Or bloom of myrtle, or murmur of laden bee,Whom lately from his unconsenting breastThe Fates, at some capricious blind behest,Intolerably had reft—Eurydice,Dear to the sunlight as Illyrian sea,Sweet as the murmur of bees, or myrtle bloom—And uncompanioned led her to the tomb.
There, solitary by the Stygian tide,Strayed her dear feet, the shadow of his own,Since, 'mid the desolate millions who have died,Each phantom walks its crowded path alone; And there her head, that slept upon his breast,No more had such sweet harbour for its rest,Nor her swift ear from those disvoicèd throatsCould catch one echo of his living notes,And, dreaming nightly of her pallid doom,No solace had he of his own young bloom,But yearned to pour his blood into her veinsAnd buy her back with unimagined pains.
To whom the Shepherd of the Shadows said:"Yea, many thus would bargain for their dead;But when they hear my fatal gateway clangLife quivers in them with a last sweet pang.They see the smoke of home above the trees,The cordage whistles on the harbour breeze;The beaten path that wanders to the shoreGrows dear because they shall not tread it more,The dog that drowsing on their threshold liesLooks at them with their childhood in his eyes,And in the sunset's melancholy fallThey read a sunrise that shall give them all."
"Not thus am I," the Harper smiled his scorn."I see no path but those her feet have worn;My roof-tree is the shadow of her hair, And the light breaking through her long despairThe only sunrise that mine eyelids crave;For doubly dead without me in the graveIs she who, if my feet had gone before,Had found life dark as death's abhorred shore."
The gate clanged on him, and he went his wayAmid the alien millions, mute and grey,Swept like a cold mist down an unlit strand,Where nameless wreckage gluts the stealthy sand,Drift of the cockle-shells of hope and faithWherein they foundered on the rock of death.
So came he to the image that he sought(Less living than her semblance in his thought),Who, at the summons of his thrilling notes,Drew back to life as a drowned creature floatsBack to the surface; yet no less is dead.And cold fear smote him till she spoke and said:"Art thou then come to lay thy lips on mine,And pour thy life's libation out like wine?Shall I, through thee, revisit earth again,Traverse the shining sea, the fruitful plain,Behold the house we dwelt in, lay my headUpon the happy pillows of our bed, And feel in dreams the pressure of thine armsKindle these pulses that no memory warms?Nay: give me for a space upon thy breastDeath's shadowy substitute for rapture—rest;Then join again the joyous living throng,And give me life, but give it in thy song;For only they that die themselves may giveLife to the dead: and I would have thee live."
Fear seized him closer than her arms; but heAnswered: "Not so—for thou shalt come with me!I sought thee not that we should part again,But that fresh joy should bud from the old pain;And the gods, if grudgingly their gifts they make,Yield all to them that without asking take."
"The gods," she said, "(so runs life's ancient lore)Yield all man takes, but always claim their score.The iron wings of the EumenidesWhen heard far off seem but a summer breeze;But me thou'lt have alive on earth againOnly by paying here my meed of pain.Then lay on my cold lips the tender ghostOf the dear kiss that used to warm them most,Take from my frozen hands thy hands of fire, And of my heart-strings make thee a new lyre,That in thy music men may find my voice,And something of me still on earth rejoice."
Shuddering he heard her, but with close-flung armSwept her resisting through the ghostly swarm."Swift, hide thee 'neath my cloak, that we may glidePast the dim warder as the gate swings wide."He whirled her with him, lighter than a leafUnwittingly whirled onward by a briefAutumnal eddy; but when the fatal doorSuddenly yielded him to life once more,And issuing to the all-consoling skiesHe turned to seek the sunlight in her eyes,He clutched at emptiness—she was not there;And the dim warder answered to his prayer:"Only once have I seen the wonder wrought.But when Alcestis thus her master sought,Living she sought him not, nor dreamed that fateFor any subterfuge would swing my gate.Loving, she gave herself to livid death,Joyous she bought his respite with her breath,Came, not embodied, but a tenuous shade,In whom her rapture a great radiance made.For never saw I ghost upon this shore Shine with such living ecstasy before,Nor heard an exile from the light aboveHail me with smiles: Thou art not Death but Love!
"But when the gods, frustrated, this beheld,How, living still, among the dead she dwelled,Because she lived in him whose life she won,And her blood beat in his beneath the sun,They reasoned: 'When the bitter Stygian waveThe sweetness of love's kisses cannot lave,When the pale flood of Lethe washes notFrom mortal mind one high immortal thought,Akin to us the earthly creature grows,Since nature suffers only what it knows.If she whom we to this grey desert bannedStill dreams she treads with him the sunlit landThat for his sake she left without a tear,Set wide the gates—her being is not here.'
"So ruled the gods; but thou, that sought'st to giveThy life for love, yet for thyself wouldst live.They know not for their kin; but back to earthGive, pitying, one that is of mortal birth."
Humbled the Harper heard, and turned away,Mounting alone to the empoverished day; Yet, as he left the Stygian shades behind,He heard the cordage on the harbour wind,Saw the blue smoke above the homestead trees,And in his hidden heart was glad of these.