Poems by Adam Lindsay Gordon Part 29

What share have I at their festive board?

Their mirth I can only mar; To me no pleasure their cups afford, Their songs on my silence jar.

With an aching eye and a throbbing brain, And yet with a hopeful heart, I must toil and strain with the planets again When the rays of the sun depart; He who must needs with the topers tope, And the feasters feast in the hall, How can he hope with a matter to cope That is immaterial?

Orion: He who his appet.i.te stints and curbs, Shut up in the northern wing, With his rye-bread flavoured with bitter herbs, And his draught from the tasteless spring, Good sooth, he is but a sorry clown.

There are some good things upon earth-- Pleasure and power and fair renown, And wisdom of worldly worth!

There is wisdom in follies that charm the sense, In follies that light the eyes, But the folly to wisdom that makes pretence Is alone by the fool termed wise.

Hugo: Thy speech, Orion, is somewhat rude; Perchance, having jeer'd and scoff'd To thy fill, thou wilt curb thy jeering mood; I wot thou hast served me oft.

This plan of the skies seems fairly traced; What errors canst thou detect?

Orion: Nay, the constellations are misplaced, And the satellites incorrect; Leave the plan to me; you have time to seek An hour of needful rest, The night is young and the planets are weak; See, the sun still reddens the west.

Hugo: I fear I shall sleep too long.

Orion: If you do It matters not much; the sky Is cloudy, the stars will be faint and few; Now, list to my lullaby.

[Hugo reclines on a couch.]

(Sings.) Still the darkling skies are red, Though the day-G.o.d's course is run; Heavenly night-lamps overhead Flash and twinkle one by one.

Idle dreamer--earth-born elf!

Vainly grasping heavenly things, Wherefore weariest thou thyself With thy vain imaginings?

From the tree of knowledge first, Since his parents pluck'd the fruit, Man, with partial knowledge curs'd, Of the tree still seeks the root; Musty volumes crowd thy shelf-- Which of these true knowledge brings?

Wherefore weariest thou thyself With thy vain imaginings?

Will the stars from heaven descend?

Can the earth-worm soar and rise?

Can the mortal comprehend Heaven's own hallow'd mysteries?

Greed and glory, power and pelf-- These are won by clowns and kings; Wherefore weariest thou thyself With thy vain imaginings?

Sow and reap, and toil and spin; Eat and drink, and dream and die; Man may strive, yet never win, And I laugh the while and cry-- Idle dreamer, earth-born elf!

Vainly grasping heavenly things, Wherefore weariest thou thyself With thy vain imaginings?

He sleeps, and his sleep appears serene, Whatever dreams it has brought him-- [Looks at the plans.]

If he knows what those hieroglyphics mean, He's wiser than one who taught him.

Why does he number the Pole-star thus?

Or the Pleiades why combine?

And what is he doing with Sirius, In the devil's name or in mine?

Man thinks, discarding the beaten track, That the sins of his youth are slain, When he seeks fresh sins, but he soon comes back To his old pet sins again.

SCENE--The Same.

HUGO waking, ORION seated near him. Daybreak.

Hugo: Oh, weary spirit! oh, cloudy eyes!

Oh, heavy and misty brain!

Yon riddle that lies 'twixt earth and skies, Ye seek to explore in vain!

See, the east is grey; put those scrolls away, And hide them far from my sight; I will toil and study no more by day, I will watch no longer by night; I have labour'd and long'd, and now I seem No nearer the mystic goal; Orion, I fain would devise some scheme To quiet this restless soul; To distant climes I would fain depart-- I would travel by sea or land.

Orion: Nay, I warn'd you of this, "Short life, long art", The proverb, though stale, will stand; Full many a sage from youth to age Has toil'd to obtain what you Would master at once. In a pilgrimage, Forsooth, there is nothing new; Though virtue, I ween, in change of scene, And vigour in change of air, Will always be, and has always been, And travel is a tonic rare.

Still, the restless, discontented mood For the time alone is eased; It will soon return with hunger renew'd, And appet.i.te unappeased.

Nathless I could teach a shorter plan To win that wisdom you crave, That lore that is seldom attain'd by man From the cradle down to the grave.

Hugo: Such lore I had rather do without, It hath nothing mystic nor awful In my eye. Nay, I despise and doubt The arts that are term'd unlawful; 'Twixt science and magic the line lies plain, I shall never wittingly pa.s.s it; There is now no compact between us twain.

Orion: But an understanding tacit.

You have prospered much since the day we met; You were then a landless knight; You now have honour and wealth, and yet I never can serve you right.

Hugo: Enough; we will start this very day, Thurston, Eric, and I, And the baffled visions will pa.s.s away, And the restless fires will die.

Orion: Till the fuel expires that feeds those fires They smoulder and live unspent; Give a mortal all that his heart desires, He is less than ever content.

SCENE--A Cliff on the Breton Coast, Overhanging the Sea.

HUGO.

Hugo: Down drops the red sun; through the gloaming They burst--raging waves of the sea, Foaming out their own shame--ever foaming Their leprosy up with fierce glee; Flung back from the stone, snowy fountains Of feathery flakes, scarcely flag Where, shock after shock, the green mountains Explode on the iron-grey crag.

The salt spray with ceaseless commotion Leaps round me. I sit on the verge Of the cliff--'twixt the earth and the ocean-- With feet overhanging the surge.

In thy grandeur, oh, sea! we acknowledge, In thy fairness, oh, earth! we confess, Hidden truths that are taught in no college, Hidden songs that no parchments express.

Were they wise in their own generations, Those sages and sagas of old?

They have pa.s.s'd; o'er their names and their nations Time's billows have silently roll'd; They have pa.s.s'd, leaving little to their children, Save histories of a truth far from strict; Or theories more vague and bewildering, Since three out of four contradict.

Lost labour! vain bookworms have sat in The halls of dull pedants who teach Strange tongues, the dead lore of the Latin, The scroll that is G.o.d-like and Greek: Have wasted life's springtide in learning Things long ago learnt all in vain; They are slow, very slow, in discerning That book lore and wisdom are twain.

Pale shades of a creed that was mythic, By time or by truth overcome, Your Delphian temples and Pythic Are ruins deserted and dumb; Your Muses are hush'd, and your Graces Are bruised and defaced; and your G.o.ds, Enshrin'd and enthron'd in high places No longer, are powerless as clods;

By forest and streamlet, where glisten'd Fair feet of the Naiads that skimm'd The shallows; where the Oreads listen'd, Rose-lipp'd, amber-hair'd, marble-limb'd, No lithe forms disport in the river, No sweet faces peer through the boughs, Elms and beeches wave silent for ever, Ever silent the bright water flows.

(Were they duller or wiser than we are, Those heathens of old? Who shall say?

Worse or better? Thy wisdom, O "Thea Glaucopis", was wise in thy day; And the false G.o.ds alluring to evil, That sway'd reckless votaries then, Were slain to no purpose; they revel Re-crowned in the hearts of us men.)

Dead priests of Osiris and Isis, And Apis! that mystical lore, Like a nightmare, conceived in a crisis Of fever, is studied no more; Dead Magian! yon star-troop that spangles The arch of yon firmament vast Looks calm, like a host of white angels, On dry dust of votaries past.

On seas unexplored can the s.h.i.+p shun Sunk rocks? Can man fathom life's links, Past or future, unsolved by Egyptian Or Theban, unspoken by Sphinx?

The riddle remains still unravell'd By students consuming night oil.

Oh, earth! we have toil'd, we have travail'd, How long shall we travail and toil?

How long? The short life that fools reckon So sweet, by how much is it higher Than brute life?--the false G.o.ds still beckon, And man, through the dust and the mire, Toils onward, as toils the dull bullock, Unreasoning, brutish, and blind, With Ashtaroth, Mammon, and Moloch In front, and Alecto behind.

The wise one of earth, the Chaldean, Serves folly in wisdom's disguise; And the sensual Epicurean, Though grosser, is hardly less wise; 'Twixt the former, half pedant, half pagan, And the latter, half sow and half sloth, We halt, choose Astarte or Dagon, Or sacrifice freely to both.

With our reason that seeks to disparage, Brute instinct it fails to subdue; With our false illegitimate courage, Our sophistry, vain and untrue; Our hopes that ascend so and fall so, Our pa.s.sions, fierce hates and hot loves, We are wise (aye, the snake is wise also)-- Wise as serpents, NOT harmless as doves.

Some flashes, like faint sparks from heaven, Come rarely with rus.h.i.+ng of wings; We are conscious at times we have striven, Though seldom, to grasp better things; These pa.s.s, leaving hearts that have falter'd, Good angels with faces estranged, And the skin of the Ethiop unalter'd, And the spots of the leopard unchanged.