Book III: Olympus — Artemis

But I, my gaze
Following the soaring soul which now was lost
In the awakening skies, floated with her,
As in a trance, beyond the golden gates
Which separate Earth from Heaven; and to my thought
Gladdened by that broad effluence of light,
This old earth seemed transfigured, and the fields,
So dim and bare, grew green and clothed themselves
With lustrous hues. A fine ethereal air
Played round me as I mused, and filled the soul
With an ineffable content. What need
Of words to tell of things unreached by words?
Or seek to engrave upon the treacherous thought
The fair and fugitive fancies of a dream,
Which vanish ere we fix them?
But methinks
He knows the scene, who knows the one fair day,
One only and no more, which year by year
In springtime comes, when lingering winter flies,
And lo! the trees blossom in white and pink.
And golden clusters, and the glades are filled
With delicate primrose and deep odorous beds
Of violets, and on the tufted meads
With kingcups starred, and cowslip bells, and blue
Sweet hyacinths, and frail anemones,
The broad West wind breathes softly, and the air
Is tremulous with the lark, and thro' the woods
The soft full-throated thrushes all day long
Flood the green dells with joy, and thro' the dry
Brown fields the sower strides, sowing his seed,
And all is life and song. Or he who first,
Whether in fair free boyhood, when the world
Is his to choose, or when his fuller life
Beats to another life, or afterwards,
Keeping his youth within his children's eyes,
Looks on the snow-clad everlasting hills,
And marks the sunset smite them, and is glad
Of the beautiful fair world.
A springtide land
It seemed, where East winds came not. Sweetest song
Was everywhere, by glade or sunny plain;
And thro' the golden valleys winding streams
Rippled in glancing silver, and above,
The blue hills rose, and over all a peak,
White, awful, with a constant fleece of cloud
Veiling its summit, towered. Unfailing Day
Lighted it, for no turn of dawn and eve
Came there, nor changing seasons, but a broad
Fixed joy of Being, undisturbed by Time.

There, in a happy glade shut in by groves
Of laurel and sweet myrtle, on a green
And flower-lit lawn, I seemed to see the ghosts
Of the old gods. Upon the gentle slope
Of a fair hill, a joyous company,
The Immortals lay. Hard by, a murmurous stream
Fell through the flowers; below them, space on space,
Laughed the immeasurable plains; beyond,
The mystic mountain soared. Height after height
Of bare rock ledges left the climbing pines,
And reared their giddy, shining terraces
Into the ethereal air. Above, the snows
Of the white summit cleft the fleece of cloud
Which always clothed it round.
Ah, fail-and sweet,
Yet with a ghostly fairness, fine and thin,
Those godlike Presences. Not dreams indeed,
But something dream-like, were they. Blessed Shades
Heroic and Divine, as when, in days
When Man was young, and Time, the vivid thought
Translated into Form the unattained
Impossible Beauty of men's dreams, and fixed
The Loveliness in marble.
As with awe
Following my spotless guide, I stood apart,
Not daring to draw near; a shining form
Rose from the throng, and floated, light as air,
To where I trembled. And I knew the face
And form of Artemis, the fair, the pure,
The undefiled. A crescent silvery moon
Shone thro' her locks, and by her side she bore
A quiver of golden darts. At sight of whom
I felt a sudden chill, like his who once
Looked upon her and died; yet could not fear,
Seeing how fair she was. Her sweet voice rang
Clear as a bird's:
"Mortal, what fate hath brought
Thee hither, uncleansed by death? How canst thou breathe
Immortal air, being mortal? Yet fear not,
Since thou art come. For we too are of earth
Whom here thou seest: there were not a heaven
Were there no earth, nor gods, had men not been,
But each the complement of each and grown
The other's creature, is and has its being,
A double essence, Human and Divine.
So that the God is hidden in the man,
And something Human bounds and forms the God;
Which else had shown too great and undefined
For mortal sight, and having no human eye
To see it, were unknown. But we who bore
Sway of old time, we were but attributes
Of the great God who is all Things that be--
The Pillar of the Earth and starry Sky,
The Depth of the great Deep; the Sun, the Moon,
The Word which Makes; the All-compelling Love--
For all Things lie within His Infinite Form."

Even as she spake, a throng of heavenly forms
Floated around me, filling all my soul
With fair unearthly beauty, and the air
With such ambrosial perfume as is born.
When morning bursts upon a tropic sea,
From boundless wastes of flowers; and as I knelt
In rapture, lo! the same clear voice again
From out the throng of gods:
"Those whom thou seest
Were even as I, embodiments of Him
Who is the Centre of all Life: myself
The Maiden-Queen of Purity; and Strength,
Divine when unabused; Love too, the Spring
And Cause of Things; and Knowledge, which lays bare
Their secret; and calm Duty, Queen of all,
And Motherhood in one; and Youth, which bears,
Beauty of Form and Life and Light, and breathes
The breath of Inspiration; and the Soul,
The particle of God, sent down to man,
Which doth in turn reveal the world and God.

Wherefore it is men called on Artemis,
The refuge of young souls; for still in age
They keep some dim reflection uneffaced
Of a Diviner Purity than comes
To the spring days of youth, when all the world
Smiles, and the rapid blood thro' the young veins
Courses, and all is glad; yet knowing too
That innocence is young--before the soil
And smirch of sadder knowledge, settling on it,
Sully its primal whiteness. So they knelt
At my white shrines, the eager vigorous youths,
To whom life's road showed like a dewy field
In early summer dawns, when to the sound
Of youth's clear voice, and to the cheerful rush
Of the tumultuous feet and clamorous tongues
Careering onwards, fair and dappled fawns,
Strange birds with jewelled plumes, fierce spotted pards,
Rise in the joyous chase, to be caught and bound
By the young conqueror; nor yet the charm
Of sensual ease allures. And they knelt too,
The pure sweet maidens fair and fancy-free,
Whose innocent virgin hearts shrank from the touch
Of passion as from wrong--sweet moonlit lives
Which fade, and pale, and vanish, in the glare
Of Love's hot noontide: these came robed in white,
With holy hymns and soaring liturgies:
And so men fabled me, a huntress now,
Borne thro' the flying woodlands, fair and free;
And now the pale cold Moon, Light without warmth,
Zeal without touch of passion, heavenly love
For human, and the altar for the home.

But oh, how sweet it was to take the love
And awe of my young worshippers; to watch
The pure young gaze and hear the pure young voice
Mount in the hymn, or see the gay troop come
With the first dawn of day, brushing the dew
From the unpolluted fields, and wake to song
The slumbering birds; strong in their innocence!
I did not envy any goddess of all
The Olympian company her votaries!
Ah, happy days of old which now are gone!
A memory and a dream! for now on earth
I rule no longer o'er young willing hearts
In voluntary fealty, which should cease
When Love, with fiery accents calling, woke
The slumbering soul; as now it should for those
Who kneel before the purer, sadder shrine
Which has replaced my own. But ah! too oft,
Not always, but too often, shut from life
Within pale life-long cloisters and the bars
Of deadly convent prisons, year by year,
Age after age, the white souls fade and pine
Which simulate the joyous service free
Of those young worshippers. I would that I
Might loose the captives' chain; or Herakles,
Who was a mortal once."