Book II: Hades — Andromeda

Then I came
On one a maiden, meek with folded hands,
Seated against a rugged face of cliff,
In silent thought. Anon she raised her arms,
Her gleaming arms, above her on the rock,
With hands which clasped each other, till she showed
As in a statue, and her white robe fell
Down from her maiden shoulders, and I knew
The fair form as it seemed chained to the stone
By some invisible gyves, and named her name:
And then she raised her frightened eyes to mine
As one who, long expecting some great fear,
Scarce sees deliverance come. But when she saw
Only a kindly glance, a softer look
Came in them, and she answered to my thought
With a sweet voice and low.
"I did but muse
Upon the painful past, long dead and done,
Forgetting I was saved.
The angry clouds
Burst always on the low flat plains, and swept
The harvest to the ocean; all the land
Was wasted. A great serpent from the deep,
Lifting his horrible head above their homes,
Devoured the children. And the people prayed
In vain to careless gods.
On that dear land,
Which now was turned into a sullen sea,
Gazing in safety from the stately towers
Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw,
Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower
The wreck of humble homes come whirling by,
The drowning, bleating flocks, the bellowing herds,
The grain scarce husbanded by toiling hands
Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea,
With floating corpses. On the rain-swept hills
The remnant of the people huddled close,
Homeless and starving. All my being was filled
With pity for them, and I joyed to give
What food and shelter and compassionate hands
Of woman might. I took the little ones
And clasped them shivering to the virgin breast
Which knew no other touch but theirs, and gave
Raiment and food. My sire, not stern to me,
Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle mother,
Who loved me with a closer love than binds
A mother to her son; and sunned herself
In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young eyes
Her own fair vanished youth; doted on me,
And fain had kept my eyes from the sad sights
That pained them. But my heart was sad in me,
Seeing the ineffable miseries of life,
And that mysterious anger of the gods,
And helpless to allay them. All in vain
Were prayer and supplication, all in vain
The costly victims steamed. The vengeful clouds
Hid the fierce sky, and still the ruin came.
And wallowing his grim length within the flood,
Over the ravaged fields and homeless homes,
The fell sea-monster raged, sating his jaws
With blood and rapine.
Then to the dread shrine
Of Ammon went the priests, and reverend chiefs
Of all the nation. White robed, at their head,
Went slow my royal sire. The oracle
Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words obscure,
Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet
The suppliants--she who bare me, with her head
Upon my neck--we cheerful and with song
Welcomed their swift return; auguring well
From such a quick-sped mission.
But my sire
Hid his face from me, and the crowd of priests
And nobles looked not at us. And no word
Was spoken till at last one drew a scroll
And gave it to the queen, who straightway swooned,
Having read it, on my breast, and then I saw,
I the young girl whose soft life scarcely knew
Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was full
Of pity for the rest, what doom was mine.

I think I hardly knew in that dread hour
The fear that came anon; I was transformed
Into a champion of my race, made strong
With a new courage, glorying to meet,
In all the ecstasy of sacrifice,
Death face to face. Some god, I know not who,
O'erspread me, and despite my mother's tears
And my stern father's grief, I met my fate
Unshrinking.
When the moon rose clear from cloud
Once more again over the midnight sea,
And that vast watery plain, where were before
Hundreds of happy homes, and well-tilled fields,
And purple vineyards; from my father's towers
The white procession went along the paths,
The high cliff paths, which well I loved of old,
Among the myrtles. Priests with censers went
And offerings, robed in white, and round their brows
The sacred fillet. With his nobles walked
My sire with breaking heart. My mother clung
To me the victim, and the young girls went
With wailing and with tears. A solemn strain
The soft flutes sounded, as we went by night
To a wild headland, rock-based in the sea.

There on a sea-worn rock, upon the verge,
To some rude stanchions, high above my head,
They bound me. Out at sea, a black reef rose,
Washed by the constant surge, wherein a cave
Sheltered deep down the monster. The sad queen
Would scarcely leave me, though the priests shrunk back
In terror. Last, torn from my endless kiss,
Swooning they bore her upwards. All my robe
Fell from my lifted arms, and left displayed
The virgin treasure of my breasts; and then
The white procession through the moonlight streamed
Upwards, and soon their soft flutes sounded low
Upon the high lawns, leaving me alone.

There stood I in the moonlight, left alone
Against the sea-worn rock. Hardly I knew,
Seeing only the bright moon and summer sea,
Which gently heaved and surged, and kissed the ledge
With smooth warm tides, what fate was mine. I seemed,
Soothed by the quiet, to be resting still
Within my maiden chamber, and to watch
The moonlight thro' my lattice. Then again
Fear came, and then the pride of sacrifice
Filled me, as on the high cliff lawns I heard
The wailing cries, the chanted liturgies,
And knew me bound forsaken to the rock,
And saw the monster-haunted depths of sea.

So all night long upon the sandy shores
I heard the hollow murmur of the wave,
And all night long the hidden sea caves made
A ghostly echo; and the sea birds mewed
Around me; once I heard a mocking laugh,
As of some scornful Nereid; once the waters
Broke louder on the scarped reefs, and ebbed
As if the monster coming; but again
He came not, and the dead moon sank, and still
Only upon the cliffs the wails, the chants,
And I forsaken on my sea-worn rock,
And lo, the monster-haunted depths of sea.

Till at the dead dark hour before the dawn,
When sick men die, and scarcely fear itself
Bore up my weary eyelids, a great surge
Burst on the rock, and slowly, as it seemed,
The sea sucked downward to its depths, laid bare
The hidden reefs, and then before my eyes--
Oh, horrible! a huge and loathsome snake
Lifted his dreadful crest and scaly side
Above the wave, in bulk and length so large,
Coil after hideous coil, that scarce the eye
Could measure its full horror; the great jaws
Dropped as with gore; the large and furious eyes
Were fired with blood and lust. Nearer he came,
And slowly, with a devilish glare, more near,
Till his hot foetor choked me, and his tongue,
Forked horribly within his poisonous jaws,
Played lightning-like around me. For awhile
I swooned, and when I knew my life again,
Death's bitterness was past.
Then with a bound
Leaped up the broad red sun above the sea,
And lit the horrid fulgour of his scales,
And struck upon the rock; and as I turned
My head in the last agony of death,
I knew a brilliant sunbeam swiftly leaping
Downward from crag to crag, and felt new hope
Where all was hopeless. On the hills a shout
Of joy, and on the rocks the ring of mail;
And while the hungry serpent's gloating eyes
Were fixed on me, a knight in casque of gold
And blazing shield, who with his flashing blade
Fell on the monster. Long the conflict raged,
Till all the rocks were red with blood and slime,
And yet my champion from those horrible jaws
And dreadful coils was scatheless. Zeus his sire
Protected, and the awful shield he bore
Withered the monster's life and left him cold,
Dragging his helpless length and grovelling crest:
And o'er his glaring eyes the films of death
Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss of hate
The great deep swallowed down, and blood and spume
Rose on the waves; and a strange wailing cry
Resounded o'er the waters, and the sea
Bellowed within its hollow-sounding caves.

Then knew I, I was saved, and with me all
The people. From my wrists he loosed the gyves,
My hero; and within his godlike arms
Bore me by slippery rock and difficult path,
To where my mother prayed. There was no need
To ask my love. Without a spoken word
Love lit his fires within me. My young heart
Went forth, Love calling, and I gave him all.

Dost thou then wonder that the memory
Of this supreme brief moment lingers still,
While all the happy uneventful years
Of wedded life, and all the fair young growth
Of offspring, and the tranquil later joys,
Nay, even the fierce eventful fight which raged
When we were wedded, fade and are deceased,
Lost in the irrecoverable past?
Nay, 'tis not strange. Always the memory
Of overwhelming perils or great joys,
Avoided or enjoyed, writes its own trace
With such deep characters upon our lives,
That all the rest are blotted. In this place,
Where is not action, thought, or count of time,
It is not weary as it were on earth,
To dwell on these old memories. Time is born
Of dawns and sunsets, days that wax and wane
And stamp themselves upon the yielding face
Of fleeting human life; but here there is
Morning nor evening, act nor suffering,
But only one unchanging Present holds
Our being suspended. One blest day indeed,
Or centuries ago or yesterday,
There came among us one who was Divine,
Not as our gods, joyous and breathing strength
And careless life, but crowned with a new crown
Of suffering, and a great light came with him,
And with him he brought Time and a new sense
Of dim, long-vanished years; and since he passed
I seem to see new meaning in my fate,
And all the deeds I tell of. Evermore
The young life comes, bound to the cruel rocks
Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea
Smiles, filled with monstrous growths that wait to take
Its innocence. Far off the voice and hand
Of love kneel by in agony, and entreat
The seeming careless gods. Still when the deep
Is smoothest, lo, the deadly fangs and coils
Lurk near, to smite with death. And o'er the crags
Of duty, like a sudden sunbeam, springs
Some golden soul half mortal, half divine,
Heaven-sent, and breaks the chain; and evermore
For sacrifice they die, through sacrifice
They live, and are for others, and no grief
Which smites the humblest but reverberates
Thro' all the close-set files of life, and takes
The princely soul that from its royal towers
Looks down and sees the sorrow.
Sir, farewell!
If thou shouldst meet my children on the earth
Or here, for maybe it is long ago
Since I and they were living, say to them
I only muse a little here, and wait
The waking."
And her lifted arms sank down
Upon her knees, and as I passed I saw her
Gazing with soft rapt eyes, and on her lips
A smile as of a saint.