The Epic of Hades Part 6

How should any hold Those precious scriptures only old-world tales Of strange impossible torments and false G.o.ds; Of men and monsters in some brainless dream, Coherent, yet unmeaning, linked together By some false skein of song?

Nay! evermore, All things and thoughts, both new and old, are writ Upon the unchanging human heart and soul.

Has Pa.s.sion still no prisoners? Pine there now No lives which fierce Love, sinking into l.u.s.t, Has drowned at last in tears and blood--plunged down To the lowest depths of h.e.l.l? Have not strong Will And high Ambition rotted into Greed And Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmed The struggling soul in ruin? h.e.l.l lies near Around us as does Heaven, and in the World, Which is our Hades, still the chequered souls Compact of good and ill--not all accurst Nor altogether blest--a few brief years Travel the little journey of their lives, They know not to what end. The weary woman Sunk deep in ease and sated with her life, Much loved and yet unloving, pines to-day As Helen; still the poet strives and sings.

And hears Apollo's music, and grows dumb, And suffers, yet is happy; still the young Fond dreamer seeks his high ideal love, And finds her name is Death; still doth the fair And innocent life, bound naked to the rock, Redeem the race; still the gay tempter goes And leaves his victim, stone; still doth pain bind Men's souls in closer links of lovingness, Than Death itself can sever; still the sight Of too great beauty blinds us, and we lose The sense of earthly splendours, gaining Heaven.

And still the skies are opened as of old To the entranced gaze, ay, nearer far And brighter than of yore; and Might is there, And Infinite Purity is there, and high Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love And Light in one, and a new, reverend Name, Greater than any and combining all; And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud, G.o.d set far off, too bright for mortal eyes.

And always, always, with each soul that comes And goes, comes that fair form which was my guide, Hovering, with golden wings and eyes divine, Above the bed of birth, the bed of death, Still breathing heavenly airs of deathless love.

For while a youth is lost in soaring thought, And while a maid grows sweet and beautiful, And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth, And while a child, and while a flower is born, And while one wrong cries for redress and finds A soul to answer, still the world is young!

THE END.