# Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems/Athens: an Ode

ATHENS:
AN ODE.
Ere from under earth again like fire the violet kindle, [Str. 1
Ere the holy buds and hoar on olive-branches bloom, Ere the crescent of the last pale month of winter dwindle, Shrink, and fall as falls a dead leaf on the dead month’s tomb, Round the hills whose heights the first-born olive-blossom brightened, Round the city brow-bound once with violets like a bride, Up from under earth again a light that long since lightened Breaks, whence all the world took comfort as all time takes pride. Pride have all men in their fathers that were free before them, In the warriors that begat us free-born pride have we:
But the fathers of their spirits, how may men adore them, With what rapture may we praise, who bade our souls be free? Sons of Athens born in spirit and truth are all born free men; Most of all, we, nurtured where the north wind holds his reign: Children all we sea-folk of the Salaminian seamen, Sons of them that beat back Persia they that beat back Spain. Since the songs of Greece fell silent, none like ours have risen; Since the sails of Greece fell slack, no ships have sailed like ours; How should we lament not, if her spirit sit in prison? How should we rejoice not, if her wreaths renew their flowers? All the world is sweeter, if the Athenian violet quicken: All the world is brighter, if the Athenian sun return: All things foul on earth wax fainter, by that sun’s light stricken: All ill growths are withered, where those fragrant flower-lights burn. All the wandering waves of seas with all their warring waters Roll the record on for ever of the sea-fight there,
When the capes were battle’s lists, and all the straits were slaughter’s, And the myriad Medes as foam-flakes on the scattering air. Ours the lightning was that cleared the north and lit the nations, But the light that gave the whole world light of old was she: Ours an age or twain, but hers are endless generations: All the world is hers at heart, and most of all are we.
Ye that bear the name about you of her glory,[Ant. 1 Men that wear the sign of Greeks upon you sealed, Yours is yet the choice to write yourselves in story Sons of them that fought the Marathonian field. Slaves of no man were ye, said your warrior poet, Neither subject unto man as underlings: Yours is now the season here wherein to show it, If the seed ye be of them that knew not kings. If ye be not, swords nor words alike found brittle From the dust of death to raise you shall prevail: Subject swords and dead men’s words may stead you little, If their old king-hating heart within you fail. If your spirit of old, and not your bonds, be broken, If the kingless heart be molten in your breasts,
By what signs and wonders, by what word or token, Shall ye drive the vultures from your eagles’ nests? All the gains of tyrants Freedom counts for losses; Nought of all the work done holds she worth the work, When the slaves whose faith is set on crowns and crosses Drive the Cossack bear against the tiger Turk. Neither cross nor crown nor crescent shall ye bow to, Nought of Araby nor Jewry, priest nor king: As your watchword was of old, so be it now too: As from lips long stilled, from yours let healing spring. Through the fights of old, your battle-cry was healing, And the Saviour that ye called on was the Sun: Dawn by dawn behold in heaven your God, revealing Light from darkness as when Marathon was won. Gods were yours yet strange to Turk or Galilean, Light and Wisdom only then as gods adored: Pallas was your shield, your comforter was Pæan, From your bright world’s navel spake the Sun your Lord.
Though the names be lost, and changed the signs of Light and Wisdom be,[Ep. 1 By these only shall men conquer, by these only be set free: When the whole world’s eye was Athens, these were yours, and theirs were ye.
Light was given you of your wisdom, light ye gave the world again: As the sun whose godhead lightened on her soul was Hellas then: Yea, the least of all her children as the chosen of other men. Change your hearts not with your garments, nor your faith with creeds that change: Truth was yours, the truth which time and chance transform not nor estrange: Purer truth nor higher abides not in the reach of time’s whole range. Gods are they in all men’s memories and for all time’s periods, They that hurled the host back seaward which had scourged the sea with rods: Gods for us are all your fathers, even the least of these as gods. In the dark of days the thought of them is with us, strong to save, They that had no lord, and made the Great King lesser than a slave; They that rolled all Asia back on Asia, broken like a wave. No man’s men were they, no master’s and no God’s but these their own: Gods not loved in vain nor served amiss, nor all yet overthrown: Love of country, Freedom, Wisdom, Light, and none save these alone.
King by king came up against them, sire and son, and turned to flee: Host on host roared westward, mightier each than each, if more might be: Field to field made answer, clamorous like as wave to wave at sea. Strife to strife responded, loud as rocks to clangorous rocks respond Where the deep rings wreck to seamen held in tempest’s thrall and bond, Till when war’s bright work was perfect peace as radiant rose beyond: Peace made bright with fruit of battle, stronger made for storm gone down, With the flower of song held heavenward for the violet of her crown Woven about the fragrant forehead of the fostress maiden’s town. Gods arose alive on earth from under stroke of human hands: As the hands that wrought them, these are dead, and mixed with time’s dead sands: But the godhead of supernal song, though these now stand not, stands. Pallas is not, Phœbus breathes no more in breathing brass or gold: Clytæmnestra towers, Cassandra wails, for ever: Time is bold, But nor heart nor hand hath he to unwrite the scriptures writ of old.
Dead the great chryselephantine God, as dew last evening shed: Dust of earth or foam of ocean is the symbol of his head: Earth and ocean shall be shadows when Prometheus shall be dead.
Fame around her warriors living rang through Greece and lightened,[Str. 2 Moving equal with their stature, stately with their strength: Thebes and Lacedæmon at their breathing presence brightened, Sense or sound of them filled all the live land’s breadth and length. All the lesser tribes put on the pure Athenian fashion, One Hellenic heart was from the mountains to the sea: Sparta’s bitter self grew sweet with high half-human passion, And her dry thorns flushed aflower in strait Thermopylæ. Fruitless yet the flowers had fallen, and all the deeds died fruitless, Save that tongues of after men, the children of her peace, Took the tale up of her glories, transient else and rootless, And in ears and hearts of all men left the praise of Greece.
Fair the war-time was when still, as beacon answering beacon, Sea to land flashed fight, and thundered note of wrath or cheer; But the strength of noonday night hath power to waste and weaken, Nor may light be passed from hand to hand of year to year If the dying deed be saved not, ere it die for ever, By the hands and lips of men more wise than years are strong; If the soul of man take heed not that the deed die never, Clothed about with purple and gold of story, crowned with song. Still the burning heart of boy and man alike rejoices, Hearing words which made it seem of old for all who sang That their heaven of heavens waxed happier when from free men’s voices Well-beloved Harmodius and Aristogeiton rang. Never fell such fragrance from the flower-month’s rose-red kirtle As from chaplets on the bright friends’ brows who slew their lord: Greener grew the leaf and balmier blew the flower of myrtle When its blossom sheathed the sheer tyrannicidal sword.
None so glorious garland crowned the feast Panathenæan As this wreath too frail to fetter fast the Cyprian dove: None so fiery song sprang sunwards annual as the pæan Praising perfect love of friends and perfect country’s love.
Higher than highest of all those heavens wherefrom the starry[Ant. 2 Song of Homer shone above the rolling fight, Gleams like spring’s green bloom on boughs all gaunt and gnarry Soft live splendour as of flowers of foam in flight, Glows a glory of mild-winged maidens upward mounting Sheer through air made shrill with strokes of smooth swift wings Round the rocks beyond foot’s reach, past eyesight’s counting, Up the cleft where iron wind of winter rings Round a God fast clenched in iron jaws of fetters, Him who culled for man the fruitful flower of fire, Bared the darkling scriptures writ in dazzling letters, Taught the truth of dreams deceiving men’s desire, Gave their water-wandering chariot-seats of ocean Wings, and bade the rage of war-steeds champ the rein,
Showed the symbols of the wild birds’ wheeling motion, Waged for man’s sake war with God and all his train. Earth, whose name was also Righteousness, a mother Many-named and single-natured, gave him breath Whence God’s wrath could wring but this word and none other— He may smite me, yet he shall not do to death. Him the tongue that sang triumphant while tormented Sang as loud the sevenfold storm that roared erewhile Round the towers of Thebes till wrath might rest contented: Sang the flight from smooth soft-sanded banks of Nile, When like mateless doves that fly from snare or tether Came the suppliants landwards trembling as they trod, And the prayer took wing from all their tongues together— King of kings, most holy of holies blessed God. But what mouth may chant again, what heart may know it, All the rapture that all hearts of men put on When of Salamis the time-transcending poet Sang, whose hand had chased the Mede at Marathon?
Darker dawned the song with stormier wings above the watch-fire spread[Ep. 2 Whence from Ida toward the hill of Hermes leapt the light that said Troy was fallen, a torch funereal for the king’s triumphal head. Dire indeed the birth of Leda’s womb that had God’s self to sire Bloomed, a flower of love that stung the soul with fangs that gnaw like fire: But the twin-born human-fathered sister-flower bore fruit more dire. Scarce the cry that called on airy heaven and all swift winds on wing, Wells of river-heads, and countless laugh of waves past reckoning, Earth which brought forth all, and the orbed sun that looks on everything, Scarce that cry fills yet men’s hearts more full of heart devouring dread Than the murderous word said mocking, how the child whose blood he shed Might clasp fast and kiss her father where the dead salute the dead. But the latter note of anguish from the lips that mocked her lord, When her son’s hand bared against the breast that suckled him his sword, How might man endure, O Æschylus, to hear it and record?
How might man endure, being mortal yet, O thou most highest, to hear? How record, being born of woman? Surely not thy Furies near, Surely this beheld, this only, blasted hearts to death with fear. Not the hissing hair, nor flakes of blood that oozed from eyes of fire, Nor the snort of savage sleep that snuffed the hungering heart’s desire Where the hunted prey found hardly space and harbour to respire; She whose likeness called them—‘Sleep ye, ho? what need of you that sleep?’ (Ah, what need indeed, where she was, of all shapes that night may keep Hidden dark as death and deeper than men’s dreams of hell are deep?) She the murderess of her husband, she the huntress of her son, More than ye was she, the shadow that no God withstands but one, Wisdom equal-eyed and stronger and more splendid than the sun. Yea, no God may stand betwixt us and the shadows of our deeds, Nor the light of dreams that lighten darkness, nor the prayer that pleads, But the wisdom equal-souled with heaven, the light alone that leads.
Light whose law bids home those childless children of eternal night, Soothed and reconciled and mastered and transmuted in men’s sight Who behold their own souls, clothed with darkness once, now clothed with light. King of kings and father crowned of all our fathers crowned of yore, Lord of all the lords of song, whose head all heads bow down before, Glory be to thee from all thy sons in all tongues evermore.
Rose and vine and olive and deep ivy-bloom entwining[Str. 3 Close the goodliest grave that e’er they closeliest might entwine Keep the wind from wasting and the sun from too strong shining Where the sound and light of sweetest songs still float and shine. Here the music seems to illume the shade, the light to whisper Song, the flowers to put not odours only forth, but words Sweeter far than fragrance: here the wandering wreaths twine crisper Far, and louder far exults the note of all wild birds.
Thoughts that change us, joys that crown and sorrows that enthrone us, Passions that enrobe us with a clearer air than ours, Move and breathe as living things beheld round white Colonus, Audibler than melodies and visibler than flowers. Love, in fight unconquered, Love, with spoils of great men laden, Never sang so sweet from throat of woman or of dove: Love, whose bed by night is in the soft cheeks of a maiden, And his march is over seas, and low roofs lack not Love; Nor may one of all that live, ephemeral or eternal, Fly nor hide from Love; but whoso clasps him fast goes mad. Never since the first-born year with flowers first-born grew vernal Such a song made listening hearts of lovers glad or sad. Never sounded note so radiant at the rayless portal Opening wide on the all-concealing lowland of the dead As the music mingling, when her doomsday marked her mortal, From her own and old men’s voices round the bride’s way shed, Round the grave her bride-house, hewn for endless habitation,
Where, shut out from sunshine, with no bridegroom by, she slept; But beloved of all her dark and fateful generation, But with all time’s tears and praise besprinkled and bewept: Well-beloved of outcast father and self-slaughtered mother, Born, yet unpolluted, of their blind incestuous bed; Best-beloved of him for whose dead sake she died, her brother, Hallowing by her own life’s gift her own born brother’s head:
Not with wine or oil nor any less libation[Ant. 3 Hallowed, nor made sweet with humbler perfume’s breath; Not with only these redeemed from desecration, But with blood and spirit of life poured forth to death; Blood unspotted, spirit unsullied, life devoted, Sister too supreme to make the bride’s hope good, Daughter too divine as woman to be noted, Spouse of only death in mateless maidenhood. Yea, in her was all the prayer fulfilled, the saying All accomplished—Would that fate would let me wear Hallowed innocence of words and all deeds, weighing Well the laws thereof begot on holier air,
Far on high sublimely stablished, whereof only Heaven is father; nor did birth of mortal mould Bring them forth, nor shall oblivion lull to lonely Slumber. Great in these is God, and grows not old. Therefore even that inner darkness where she perished Surely seems as holy and lovely, seen aright, As desirable and as dearly to be cherished, As the haunt closed in with laurels from the light, Deep inwound with olive and wild vine inwoven, Where a godhead known and unknown makes men pale, But the darkness of the twilight noon is cloven Still with shrill sweet moan of many a nightingale. Closer clustering there they make sweet noise together, Where the fearful gods look gentler than our fear, And the grove thronged through with birds of holiest feather Grows nor pale nor dumb with sense of dark things near. There her father, called upon with signs of wonder, Passed with tenderest words away by ways unknown, Not by sea-storm stricken down, nor touched of thunder, To the dark benign deep underworld, alone.
Third of three that ruled in Athens, kings with sceptral song for staff,[Ep. 3 Gladdest heart that God gave ever milk and wine of thought to quaff, Clearest eye that lightened ever to the broad lip’s lordliest laugh, Praise be thine as theirs whose tragic brows the loftier leaf engirds For the live and lyric lightning of thy honey-hearted words, Soft like sunny dewy wings of clouds and bright as crying of birds; Full of all sweet rays and notes that make of earth and air and sea One great light and sound of laughter from one great God’s heart, to be Sign and semblance of the gladness of man’s life where men breathe free. With no Loxian sound obscure God uttered once, and all time heard, All the soul of Athens, all the soul of England, in that word: Rome arose the second child of freedom: northward rose the third. Ere her Boreal dawn came kindling seas afoam and fields of snow, Yet again, while Europe groaned and grovelled, shone like suns aglow Doria splendid over Genoa, Venice bright with Dandolo.
Dead was Hellas, but Ausonia by the light of dead men’s deeds Rose and walked awhile alive, though mocked as whom the fen-fire leads By the creed-wrought faith of faithless souls that mock their doubts with creeds. Dead are these, and man is risen again: and haply now the Three Yet coequal and triune may stand in story, marked as free By the token of the washing of the waters of the sea. Athens first of all earth’s kindred many-tongued and many-kinned Had the sea to friend and comfort, and for kinsman had the wind: She that bare Columbus next: then she that made her spoil of Ind. She that hears not what man’s rage but only what the sea-wind saith: She that turned Spain’s ships to cloud-wrack at the blasting of her breath, By her strengths of strong-souled children and of strong winds done to death. North and south the Great King’s galleons went in Persian wise: and here She, with Æschylean music on her lips that laughed back fear, In the face of Time’s grey godhead shook the splendour of her spear.
Fair as Athens then with foot upon her foeman’s front, and strong Even as Athens for redemption of the world from sovereign wrong, Like as Athens crowned she stood before the sun with crowning song. All the world is theirs with whom is freedom: first of all the free, Blest are they whom song has crowned and clothed with blessing: these as we, These alone have part in spirit with the sun that crowns the sea,
April, 1881.