Book III: Olympus — Zeus

Then when my thought revived again, I said
Whispering, "But Zeus I saw not, the prime Source
And Sire of all the gods."
And she, bent low
With downcast eyes: "Nay. Thou hast seen of Him
All that thine eyes can bear, in those fair forms
Which are but parts of Him and are indeed
Attributes of the Substance which supports
The Universe of Things--the Soul of the World,
The Stream which flows Eternal, from no Source
Into no Sea, His Purity, His Strength,
His Love, His Knowledge, His unchanging rule
Of Duty, thou hast seen, only a part
And not the whole, being a finite mind
Too weak for infinite thought; nor, couldst thou see
All of Him visible to mortal sight,
Wouldst thou see all His essence, since the gods--
Glorified essences of Human mould,
Who are but Zeus made visible to men--
See Him not wholly, only some thin edge
And halo of His glory; nor know they
What vast and unsuspected Universes
Lie beyond thought, where yet He rules, like those
Vast Suns we cannot see, round which our Sun
Moves with his system, or those darker still
Which not even thus we know, but yet exist
Tho' no eye marks, nor thought itself, and lurk
In the awful Depths of Space; or that which is
Not orbed as yet, but indiscrete, confused,
Sown thro' the void--the faintest gleam of light
Which sets itself to Be. And yet is He
There too, and rules, none seeing. But sometimes
To this our heaven, which is so like to earth
But nearer to Him, for awhile He shows
Some gleam of His own brightness, and methinks
It cometh soon; but thou, if thou shouldst gaze,
Thy Life will rush to His--the tiny spark
Absorbed in that full blaze--and what there is
Of mortal fall from thee."
But I: "Oh, soul,
What holdeth Life more precious than to know
The Giver and to die?"
Then she: "Behold!
Look upward and adore."
And with the word,
Unhasting, undelaying, gradual, sure,
The floating cloud which clothed the hidden peak
Rose slow in awful silence, laying bare
Spire after rocky spire, snow after snow,
Whiter and yet more dreadful, till at last
It left the summit clear.
Then with a bound,
In the twinkling of an eye, in the flash of a thought,
I knew an Awful Effluence of Light,
Formless, Ineffable, Perfect, burst on me
And flood my being round, and take my life
Into itself. I saw my guide bent down
Prostrate, her wings before her face; and then
No more.

But when I woke from my long trance
Behold, it was no longer Tartarus,
Nor Hades, nor Olympus, but the bare
And unideal aspect of the fields
Which Spring not yet had kissed--the strange old Earth
So far more fabulous now than in the days
When Man was young, nor yet the mystery
Of Time and Fate transformed it. From the hills,
The long night fled at last, the unclouded sun,
The dear, fair sun, leapt upward swift, and smote
My sight with rays of gold, and pierced my brain
With too much light ere my entranced eyes
Could hide themselves.
And I was on the Earth
Dreaming the dream of Life again, as late
I dreamed the dream of Death.
Another day
Dawned on the race of men; another world;
New heavens, and new earth.

And as I went
Across the lightening fields, upon a bank
I saw a single snowdrop glance, and bring
Promise of Spring; and keeping my old thought
In the old fair Hellenic vesture dressed,
I felt myself a ghost, and seemed to be
Now fair Adonis hasting to the arms
Of his lost love--now sad Persephone
Restored to mother earth--or that high shade
Orpheus, who gave up heaven to save his love,
And is rewarded--or young Marsyas,
Who spent his youth and life for song, and yet
Was happy though in torture--or the fair
And dreaming youth I saw, who still awaits,
Hopeful, the unveiling heaven, when he shall see
His fair ideal love. The birds sang blithe;
There came a tinkling from the waking fold;
And on the hillside from the cot a girl
Tripped singing with her pitcher. All the sounds
And thoughts which still are beautiful--Youth, Song,
Dawn, Spring, Renewal--and my soul was glad
Of all the freshness, and I felt again
The youth and spring-tide of the world, and thought,
Which feigned those fair and gracious fantasies.

For every dawn that breaks brings a new world,
And every budding bosom a new life;
These fair tales, which we know so beautiful,
Show only finer than our lives to-day
Because their voice was clearer, and they found
A sacred bard to sing them. We are pent,
Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealth
Of ages of past song. We have no more
The world to choose from, who, where'er we turn,
Tread through old thoughts and fair. Yet must we sing--
We have no choice; and if more hard the toil
In noon, when all is clear, than in the fresh
White mists of early morn, yet do we find
Achievement its own guerdon, and at last
The rounder song of manhood grows more sweet
Than the high note of youth.
For Age, long Age!
Nought else divides us from the fresh young days
Which men call ancient; seeing that we in turn
Shall one day be Time's ancients, and inspire
The wiser, higher race, which yet shall sing
Because to sing is human, and high thought
Grows rhythmic ere its close. Nought else there is
But that weird beat of Time, which doth disjoin
To-day from Hellas.
How should any hold
Those precious scriptures only old-world tales
Of strange impossible torments and false gods;
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 Passion still no prisoners? Pine there now
No lives which fierce Love, sinking into Lust,
Has drowned at last in tears and blood--plunged down
To the lowest depths of Hell? Have not strong Will
And high Ambition rotted into Greed
And Wrong, for any, as of old, and whelmed
The struggling soul in ruin? Hell 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,
God 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!