Poems (Van Rensselaer)/Ode to a Greek Head called Aphrodite
ODE
TO A GREEK HEAD CALLED
APHRODITE
ODE
TO A GREEK HEAD CALLED
Cold is the day, a northern day and darkly cold, The daylight drowned in snow.The singer heeds not, for his eyes and heart behold Beauty's high lamp aglow.
Thou lovely waif from mellower time and clime than ours, Give ear to his low plea:Grant him a breath from the one field that bore such flowers— Thy prototype and thee.
Not Aphrodite, though they name thee so.Thine eyes are misted crescent moons below The white cloud of thy brow, But hers are stars—clear and elateLike the bright Twins that once were Leda's sons, Or passionateAs Betelgeuze and Bellatrix of martial name Who in his shoulders flame Where the huge Hunter through the midnight runs. Her lips are tools of destiny:Forever newly they accord, refuse, invite, Deep dangers of delight; Thine but imagine tremulously.And, many though her moods, she knoweth not the one That woos us to this stone Wherein thou livest passionless,Immortal in a vision-haunted wistfulness.
Not Aphrodite, nor of race divineAnother, bidding worship such as mineCome never nearer than the dust beneath her tread. A girl from golden years long dead,A maid unknown, unnamèd, here survives, Rescued in this Fair chrysalis From a far ruined world whose shoreShows dense with formless shadows of lost lives,Lost and forevermore forgot, forevermore.
Thou, only, saved!—and yet not thou, not thou! Only the line Of cheek and brow, The curves of eyelid, lip, and chin, The delicate languor of the head's incline,The rippling of the soft and heavy hair; And, shrined their purity within,Veiled and elusive yet imperishably there,In reverence to be read as on some sacred scroll, The signet-markings of the soul.
How shall we trace the clue to thy sweet mystery? We fancy thee as one who grievesFor the soft stirring of gray olive leaves,And yellow jonquils underneath the olive tree,And for the high clear lines of shaft and architrave,For lifted walls serene in beauty won From chiselled form and pattern, braveWith brazen shields where break the arrows of the sun. A first quick fancy! But we know,Shut here in arid walls beneath a cold And alien sky, Thou art not yearning for the landThy home. For even as we to-day behold And worship, even so His eyes beheld whose hand, From exquisite flesh that needs must die, To marble of immortality Transferred thy spirit while were thine Olive and ivy, laurel and the vineIn varying companionship accordant met,Far hills' unchanging rhythm of undulate lineAnd changing rhapsodies of purple hue,And shining fanes on bare and sunny headlands setBetween the darker and the paler blue.
Not these the loadstone of thy wishful gaze.Now, even as when the sculptor sought in thee A guide to beauty's verity, Inward it turns always. And who shall follow? Where the pathInto the sanctuary of a soul that hathThe walls of pilèd centuries for guard?Long have I loved and pondered; keeping patient watch,Long have I waited, as though unawares to catch A voice soft-whispering beneath The impenetrable sheath Marmorean. And I hear no word.I only know that in thine own heart layThe clouds that dimmed for thee the brilliance of the day.Not throes of empire shadowed thus the joyousnessOf thy young years; not cities' leaguered long distress, Lost armies, argosies a-wreck, or heroes' fate,Crushed to a splendid death by their own glory's weight.In thee alone it lives, the gentle grief, The tender burden of desire That finds in dreams a half-relief,But would not weep lest falling tear on tear Lessen the burning of a fireThan any calming touch more intimately dear.
The hurt we know not, but we knowNever it pierced the shield of innocence below,To the immaculate deep core of maidenhood. Thy rosariesOf fond remembering with but pearls are strung;The roses of delight whereon thy longings brood Thy virgin vision sees Unsullied lily-fields among.—Ay, but they budded once in crimson wealth to blowAnd fervent fragrance, all ungarnered though they died. Not thine a claustral chastity That had deniedTo answering love its happy seignory.Not by thine own free choosing was withheld The passionate whole Of woman's dower; not thine own will but fate, Implacable thy feet compelled To turn thee from the gateOf motherhood, to the enkindled soul Refused the body's mate,And bade the stirred heart live—ah, how reluctantly!—Betrothed forever to virginity.
How are we parted, thou and I! What miles of space,What irretraceable far miles of time, Dissever from thy faceThe eyes that crave so to have seen its living prime! Even the pole-star, to our sense Symbol and proof of permanence,Hath journeyed, so were multiplied the years, Unto the pilot placeHe held not for seafarers of thy race;And on the scintillant highway of the zodiac The sun hath tired and fallen back; No longer he appears,Punctual, in the appointed star-framed houses where, When ancient wisdom sought him thereAs solstice or as equinox returned, His dazzling signal burned.
Thou art the elder by how much! Yet young, so young—As though the birds of dawn had by thy cradle sung When I long since had learned to bearThe burdens of the laboring day. So long,Long dead! Yet still a woman-child amongThe living generations, and aliveWith such an animate flame as shall surviveWhen we who breathe to-day are in our turn Tenants of perished graves; ay, sure— Voiceless and yet how eloquent!— Ageless, unaltering, to endureTill unborn centuries shall of thy witness learnNot time but beauty is the arm plenipotent.
And now, to-day, leaning thine earSo gently, it must be that thou canst hearHow I, a wandering singer, plead to thee. Quicken my timid minstrelsy:Show me in dreams what memories hold thy long And tender gazing, That, woven in my song, They thrill it to a tenderer phrasing;Let visions of thy visions of young loveTo purest cadences my passion move; Interpret the sweet patience of such painAs stirs to ardencies of love again;Interpret innocence, and youth, and April's breath,The powerlessness of time, the impotence of death.To the high deities for my sake prayWho choose and use us as they will: prevail that theyWith joys and tears prepare the seed-beds of my heart,Winnow with chastening winds the harvests of my soul,Touch my chill lips with the white coal Of truth, and clarify my sightUpward to follow where the guiding light Streams from the torch of art.
So shall I sing, albeit with muted notes, as sing, Celestial clear,The musical fair meanings of thy face; So to the eye, the ear,Of spirits straying in a dumb and darkened place My melody shall bring Echoes, if only faint and far,Of brooks-and birds and sun-rays of the spring;So shall it lave them in a halcyon air, Lead them with banners as of moon and morning star; Lull them to rest; In the numb breast Unseal the fountains of emotion; Soothe the tempestuous mood And quellThe headstrong insurrection of the blood With balm of poesy's ablution, And the sure anodyne Of harp-strings touched to chords that tellWhat thou hast told this burning heart of mine,Daughter of earth and voice of the divine! 1909.