Mares' milk, and bread

Baked on the embers;-all around

The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd

With saffron and the yellow hollyhock
And flag-leaved iris flowers.
Sitting in his cart

[miles,

He makes his meal; before him, for long
Alive with bright green lizards,
And the springing bustard-fowl,
The track, a straight black line,
Furrows the rich soil; here and there
Clusters of lonely mounds
Topp'd with rough-hewn,

Gray, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer
The sunny waste.

They see the ferry

On the broad, clay-laden

Lone Chorasmian stream; thereon,
With snort and strain,

Two horses, strongly swimming, tow
The ferry-boat, with woven rʊpes
To either bow

Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief
With shout and shaken spear,

Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern

The cowering merchants, in long robes,

Sit pale beside their wealth
Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,
Of gold and ivory,

Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,
Jasper and chalcedony,

And milk-barr'd onyx-stones.
The loaded boat swings groaning
In the yellow eddies;
The Gods behold them.

They see the Heroes
Sitting in the dark ship
On the foamless, long-heaving
Violet sea.

At sunset nearing

The Happy Islands.

These things, Ulysses,
The wise bards also
Behold and sing.
But oh, what labor!
O prince, what pain!

They too can see
Tiresias;-but the Gods,
Who give them vision,
Added this law:

That they should bear too
His groping blindness,
His dark foreboding,
His scorn'd white hairs;
Bear Hera's anger
Through a life lengthen'd
To seven ages.

They see the Centaurs

On Pelion ;-then they feel,
They too, the maddening wine
Swell their large veins to bursting; in
wild pain

They feel the biting spears

Of the grim Lapithæ, and Theseus, drive, Drive crashing through their bones;

they feel

Till they too fade like grass; they crawl Like shadows forth in spring.

They see the merchants

On the Oxus stream;-but care

Must visit first them too, and make them pale.

Whether, through whirling sand, A cloud of desert robber-horse have burst

Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,
In the wall'd cities the way passes
through,

Crush'd them with tolls; or fever-airs,
On some great river's marge,
Mown them down, far from home.

They see the Heroes

Near harbor-but they share

Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,

Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;

Or where the echoing oars

Of Argo first

Startled the unknown sea.

The old Silenus

Came, lolling in the sunshine,
From the dewy forest-coverts,
This way at noon.

Sitting by me, while his Fauns
Down at the water-side
Sprinkled and smoothed
His drooping garland,
He told me these things.

But I, Ulysses,

Sitting on the warm steps,
Looking over the valley,
All day long, have seen.
Without pain, without labor,
Sometimes a wild-hair'd Mænad-
Sometimes a Faun with torches--
And sometimes, for a moment,
Passing through the dark stems
Flowing-robed, the beloved,
The desire, the divine,
Beloved Iacchus.

Ah, cool night-wind, tremulous stars!
Ah, glimmering water,
Fitful earth-murmur,
Dreaming woods!

Ah, golden-haired, strangely smiling
Goddess,

And thou, proved, much enduring,
Wave-toss'd Wanderer!

Who can stand still?

Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before meThe cup again!

And struck his finger on the place,
And said: Thou ailest here, and here!
He look'd on Europe's dying hour
Of fitful dream and feverish power;
His eye plunged down the weltering
strife,

The turmoil of expiring life-
He said: The end is everywhere,
Art still has truth, take refuge there!
And he was happy, if to know
Causes of things, and far below
His feet to see the lurid flow
Of terror, and insane distress,
And headlong fate, be happiness.

And Wordsworth!-Ah, pale ghosts rejoice!

For never has such soothing voice
Been to your shadowy world convey'd,
Since erst, at morn, some wandering

shade

Wordsworth has gone from us and ye,
Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!
He too upon a wintry clime
Had fallen-on this iron time

Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.
He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us and we had ease;
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth returned; for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,
The freshness of the early world.

Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing
power?

Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear-
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly-
But who, like him, will put it by?

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave
O Rotha, with thy living wave!
Sing him thy best! for few or none
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.
1850.

SELF-DECEPTION

Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing,

Staved us back, and gave our choice the law.

Ah, whose hand that day through Heaven guided

Man's new spirit, since it was not we?. Ah, who swayed our choice and who decided

What our gifts, and what our wants should be?

For, alas! he left us each retaining Shreds of gifts which he refused in full. Still these waste us with their hopeless straining,

Still the attempt to use them proves them null.

And on earth we wander, groping, reel

ing;

Powers stir in us, stir and disappear. Ah! and he, who placed our masterfeeling,

Fail'd to place that master-feeling clear.

We but dream we have our wish'd-for powers,

Ends we seek we never shall attain. Ah! some power exists there, which is ours?

Some end is there, we indeed may gain? 1852.

THE SECOND BEST

MODERATE tasks and moderate leisure,
Quiet living, strict-kept measure
Both in suffering and in pleasure-

'Tis for this thy nature yearns.

But so many books thou readest.
But so many schemes thou breedest,
But so many wishes feedest,

That thy poor head almost turns.
And (the world 's so madly jangled
Human things so fast entangled)
Nature's wish must now be strangled
For that best which she discerns.
So it must be! yet, while leading
A strain'd life, while overfeeding,
Like the rest, his wit with reading,
No small profit that man earns,
Who through all he meets can steer him
Can reject what cannot clear him,
Cling to what can truly cheer him ;

Who each day more surely learns

LYRIC STANZAS OF EMPEDOCLES

THE Out-spread world to span
A cord the Gods first slung,
And then the soul of man
There, like a mirror, hung,

And bade the winds through space impel the gusty toy.

Hither and thither spins

The wind-borne, mirroring soul,
A thousand glimpses wins,
And never sees a whole;

Looks once, and drives elsewhere, and leaves its last employ.

The Gods laugh in their sleeve
To watch man doubt and fear
Who knows not what to believe
Since he sees nothing clear,

And dares stamp nothing false where he finds nothing sure.

Is this, Pausanias, so?

And can our souls not strive,
But with the winds must go,
And hurry where they drive?

Is fate indeed so strong, man's strength indeed so poor?

I will not judge. That man,
Howbeit, I judge as lost,
Whose mind allows a plan,
Which would degrade it most;

And he treats doubt the best who tries to see least ill.

Be not, then, fear's blind slave!

Thou art my friend; to thee,

All knowledge that I have,

All skill I wield, are free.

Ask not the latest news of the last miracle,

Ask not what days and nights
In trance Pantheia lay,

But ask how thou such sights
May'st see without dismay;

Ask what most helps when known, thou son of Anchitus!

What? hate, and awe, and shame Fill thee to see our time;

Thou feelest thy soul's frame
Shaken and out of chime?

What? life and chance go hard with thee too, as with us;

Thy citizens, 'tis said,
Envy thee and oppress,
Thy goodness no men aid,
All strive to make it less;

Tyranny, pride, and lust, fill Sicily's abodes;

Heaven is with earth at strife,
Signs make thy soul afraid,
The dead return to life,

Rivers are dried, winds stay'd;

Scarce can one think in calm, so threatening are the Gods;

And we feel, day and night,
The burden of ourselves-
Well, then, the wiser wight
In his own bosom delves,

And asks what ails him so, and gets what cure he can.

The sophist sneers: Fool, take
Thy pleasure, right or wrong.
The pious wail: Forsake

A world these sophists throng. Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man!

These hundred doctors try

To preach thee to their school.
We have the truth! they cry;
And yet their oracle,

Trumpet it as they will, is but the same as thine.

Once read thy own breast right,
And thou hast done with fears;
Man gets no other light,
Search he a thousand years.

Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine!

What makes thee struggle and rave?
Why are men ill at ease ?-

"Tis that the lot they have

Fails their own will to please;

For man would make no murmuring were his will obey'd.

And why is it, that still

Man with his lot thus fights?

'Tis that he makes this will
The measure of his rights,

And believes Nature outraged if his will's gainsaid.