Book II: Hades — Marsyas

Then from those dark
And dreadful precincts passing, ghostly fields
And voiceless took me. A faint twilight veiled
The leafless, shadowy trees and herbless plains.
There stirred no breath of air to wake to life
The slumbers of the world. The sky above
Was one gray, changeless cloud. There looked no eye
Of Life from the veiled heavens; but Sleep and Death
Were round me everywhere. And yet no fear
Nor horror took me here, where was no pain
Nor dread, save that strange tremor which assails
One who in life's hot noontide looks on death
And knows he too shall die. The ghosts which rose
From every darkling copse showed thin and pale--
Thinner and paler far than those I left
In agony; even as Pity seems to wear
A thinner form than Fear.
Not caged alone
Like those the avenging Furies purged were these,
Nor that dim land as those black cavernous depths
Where no hope comes. Fair souls were they and white
Whom there I saw, waiting as we shall wait,
The Beatific End, but thin and pale
As the young faith which made them; touched a little
By the sad memories of the earth; made glad
A little by past joys: no more; and wrapt
In musing on the brief play played by them
Upon the lively earth, yet ignorant
Of the long lapse of years, and what had been
Since they too breathed Life's air, or if they knew,
Keeping some echo only; but their pain
Was fainter than their joy, and a great hope
Like ours possessed them dimly.

First I saw
A youth who pensive leaned against the trunk
Of a dark cypress, and an idle flute
Hung at his side. A sorrowful sad soul,
Such as sometimes he knows, who meets the gaze,
Mute, uncomplaining yet most pitiful,
Of one whom nature, by some secret spite,
Has maimed and left imperfect; or the pain
Which fills a poet's eyes. Beneath his robe
I seemed to see the scar of cruel stripes,
Too hastily concealed. Yet was he not
Wholly unhappy, but from out the core
Of suffering flowed a secret spring of joy,
Which mocked the droughts of Fate, and left him glad
And glorying in his sorrow. As I gazed
He raised his silent flute, and, half ashamed,
Blew a soft note; and as I stayed awhile
I heard him thus discourse--
"The flute is sweet
To gods and men, but sweeter far the lyre
And voice of a true singer. Shall I fear
To tell of that great trial, when I strove
And Phoebus conquered? Nay, no shame it is
To bow to an immortal melody;
But glory.
Once among the Phrygian hills
I lay a-musing,--while the silly sheep
Wandered among the thyme--upon the bank
Of a clear mountain stream, beneath the pines,
Safe hidden from the noon. A dreamy haze
Played on the uplands, but the hills were clear
In sunlight, and no cloud was on the sky.
It was the time when a deep silence comes
Upon the summer earth, and all the birds
Have ceased from singing, and the world is still
As midnight, and if any live thing move--
Some fur-clad creature, or cool gliding snake--
Within the pipy overgrowth of weeds,
The ear can catch the rustle, and the trees
And earth and air are listening. As I lay,
Faintly, as in a dream, I seemed to hear
A tender music, like the AEolian chords,
Sound low within the woodland, whence the stream,
Flowed full, yet silent. Long, with ear to ground,
I hearkened; and the sweet strain, fuller grown,
Rounder and clearer came, and danced along
In mirthful measure now, and now grown grave
In dying falls, and sweeter and more clear,
Tripping at nuptials and high revelry,
Wailing at burials, rapt in soaring thoughts,
Chanting strange sea-tales full of mystery,
Touching all chords of being, and life and death,
Now rose, now sank, and always was divine,
So strange the music came.
Till, as I lay
Enraptured, swift a sudden discord rang,
And all the sound grew still. A sudden flash,
As from a sunlit jewel, fired the wood.
A noise of water smitten, and on the hills
A fair white fleece of cloud, which swiftly climbed
Into the farthest heaven. Then, as I mused,
Knowing a parting goddess, straight I saw
A sudden splendour float upon the stream,
And knew it for this jewelled flute, which paused
Before me on an eddy. It I snatched
Eager, and to my ardent lips I bore
The wonder, and behold, with the first breath--
The first warm human breath, the silent strains.
The half-drowned notes which late the goddess blew,
Revived, and sounded clearer, sweeter far
Than mortal skill could make. So with delight
I left my flocks to wander o'er the wastes
Untended, and the wolves and eagles seized
The tender lambs, but I was for my art--
Nought else; and though the high-pitched notes divine
Grew faint, yet something lingered, and at last
So sweet a note I sounded of my skill,
That all the Phrygian highlands, all the white
Hill villages, were fain to hear the strain,
Which the mad shepherd made.
So, overbold,
And rapt in my new art, at last I dared
To challenge Phoebus' self.
'Twas a fair day
When sudden, on the mountain side, I saw
A train of fleecy clouds in a white band
Descending. Down the gleaming pinnacles
And difficult crags they floated, and the arch,
Drawn with its thousand rays against the sun,
Hung like a glory o'er them. Midst the pines
They clothed themselves with form, and straight I knew
The immortals. Young Apollo, with his lyre,
Kissed by the sun, and all the Muses clad
In robes of gleaming white; then a great fear,
Yet mixed with joy, assailed me, for I knew
Myself a mortal equalled with the gods.

Ah me! how fair they were! how fair and dread
In face and form, they showed, when now they came
Upon the thymy slope, and the young god
Lay with his choir around him, beautiful
And bold as Youth and Dawn! There was no cloud
Upon the sky, nor any sound at all
When I began my strain. No coward fear
Of what might come restrained me; but an awe
Of those immortal eyes and ears divine
Looking and listening. All the earth seemed full
Of ears for me alone--the woods, the fields,
The hills, the skies were listening. Scarce a sound
My flute might make; such subtle harmonies
The silence seemed to weave round me and flout
The half unuttered thought. Till last I blew,
As now, a hesitating note, and lo!
The breath divine, lingering on mortal lips,
Hurried my soul along to such fair rhymes,
Sweeter than wont, that swift I knew my life
Rise up within me, and expand, and all
The human, which so nearly is divine,
Was glorified, and on the Muses' lips,
And in their lovely eyes, I saw a fair
Approval, and my soul in me was glad.

For all the strains I blew were strains of love--
Love striving, love triumphant, love that lies
Within beloved arms, and wreathes his locks
With flowers, and lets the world go by and sings
Unheeding; and I saw a kindly gleam
Within the Muses' eyes, who were indeed,
Women, though god-like.
But upon the face
Of the young Sun-god only haughty scorn
Sate and he swiftly struck his golden lyre,
And played the Song of Life; and lo, I knew
My strain, how earthy! Oh, to hear the young
Apollo playing! and the hidden cells
And chambers of the universe displayed
Before the charmed sound! I seemed to float
In some enchanted cave, where the wave dips
In from the sunlit sea, and floods its depths
With reflex hues of heaven. My soul was rapt
By that I heard, and dared to wish no more
For victory; and yet because the sound
Of music that is born of human breath
Comes straighter from the soul than any strain
The hand alone can make; therefore I knew,
With a mixed thrill of pity and delight,
The nine immortal Sisters hardly touched
By this fine strain of music, as by mine,
And when the high lay trembled to its close,
Still doubting.
Then upon the Sun-god's face
There passed a cold proud smile. He swept his lyre
Once more, then laid it down, and with clear voice,
The voice of godhead, sang. Oh, ecstasy,
Oh happiness of him who once has heard
Apollo singing! For his ears the sound
Of grosser music dies, and all the earth
Is full of subtle undertones, which change
The listener and transform him. As he sang--
Of what I know not, but the music touched
Each chord of being--I felt my secret life
Stand open to it, as the parched earth yawns
To drink the summer rain; and at the call
Of those refreshing waters, all my thought
Stir from its dark and secret depths, and burst
Into sweet, odorous flowers, and from their wells
Deep call to deep, and all the mystery
Of all that is, laid open. As he sang,
I saw the Nine, with lovely pitying eyes,
Sign 'He has conquered.' Yet I felt no pang
Of fear, only deep joy that I had heard
Such music while I lived, even though it brought
Torture and death. For what were it to lie
Sleek, crowned with roses, drinking vulgar praise,
And surfeited with offerings, the dull gift
Of ignorant hands--all which I might have known--
To this diviner failure? Godlike 'tis
To climb upon the icy ledge, and fall
Where other footsteps dare not. So I knew
My fate, and it was near.
For to a pine
They bound me willing, and with cruel stripes
Tore me, and took my life.
But from my blood
Was born the stream of song, and on its flow
My poor flute, to the cool swift river borne,
Floated, and thence adown a lordlier tide
Into the deep, wide sea. I do not blame
Phoebus, or Nature which has set this bar
Betwixt success and failure, for I know
How far high failure overleaps the bound
Of low successes. Only suffering draws
The inner heart of song and can elicit
The perfumes of the soul. 'Twere not enough
To fail, for that were happiness to him
Who ever upward looks with reverent eye
And seeks but to admire. So, since the race
Of bards soars highest; as who seek to show
Our lives as in a glass; therefore it comes
That suffering weds with song, from him of old,
Who solaced his blank darkness with his verse;
Through all the story of neglect and scorn,
Necessity, sheer hunger, early death,
Which smite the singer still. Not only those
Who keep clear accents of the voice divine
Are honourable--they are happy, indeed,
Whate'er the world has held--but those who hear
Some fair faint echoes, though the crowd be deaf,
And see the white gods' garments on the hills,
Which the crowd sees not, though they may not find
Fit music for their thought; they too are blest,
Not pitiable. Not from arrogant pride
Nor over-boldness fail they who have striven
To tell what they have heard, with voice too weak
For such high message. More it is than ease,
Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries,
To have seen white Presences upon the hills,
To have heard the voices of the Eternal Gods."

So spake he, and I seemed to look on him,
Whose sad young eyes grow on us from the page
Of his own verse: who did himself to death:
Or whom the dullard slew: or whom the sea
Rapt from us: and I passed without a word,
Slow, grave, with many musings.