Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-27
TANTALUs.


walls,
With sinuous wave and sluggish-moving tide
And murmurs like the faint and weary groaAs
OF souls long stricken by the pain of he'll,
Stood neck-deep in the stream, yet could not
drink.
Sometimes he rayed and shook the rocks around
With words so wild that Hades shrank in awe.
Anon the majesty of regal thought
Arose and ruled within his fevered soul;
And thus he spake in commune with himself:
" Ye stars, that naked in yon sea OF blue
Float on for ever through harmonious space,
Lighting the dim half world to which the moon
Shall come not till the month he full of Joy;
Ye winds, that sweep the oceans wrinkled front,
And fondle it 10 music and to sleep,
What hope hath man in life or YET in death,
If nothing slumbers in the silent grave
That shall not wake again to strife and p1in2
Oh, many Swallowed dell where was born,
Near the soft murmur of the silver waves
OF tremuious fgean, where the stream
Of babbling brook rushes down the grassy
slope
And shivered into spray upon the strand,
Hast thou forgot me2 Spirits of earth and air,
Is ope then dead, and is there naught in all
This neither world but hot and seething thirst"
And lol there came faint and distant strain
OF sweetest music. like the whispered voice
OF muted strings, rapt to their highest tones,
Borne up on broken chords of throbbing harps;
And g dim, strange light, like an unrt al dawn,
Broke slow across his vision. Strong it grew
And a sweet perfume stole across the air
And lulled his throbbing senses from their woe.
Then from the vista of supernal light
Grew out form of wondrous loveliness,
And v>ice spake along the shadowy gulf
"Lo am she that ruled the great round world
Before thou vert or ever man was born
OF heavens eternal fire; sprung from the foam
OF everlasting seas, and marked by Zeus
To be alike mans misery and hope.
TantaluS, look around thee. IN these shades,
Condemned by Wraths Of gods and curse of fate,
Thou lingerest alone mid dancing waves,
Consumed by never-dying thirst
Oh, speak It not" ne cried with husky throat
" Nay, hear me out" she said; AZ bring TO thee
That for which men have bed and nations
fallen.'
A wild light sprang into his fevered eye.
And high above his head he tossed his hands:
Great gods, that dwell in far olympian nights,
thank ye. Goddess, speak wait thy words"
" Nay, think not OF the gods" she said, I" for
Are deaf to thee; bat have heard thy moan
Now, Tantalus, behold me: am fair?'
" Fair as the CLEAN of dawn'on Ida's brow,
When the sweet sun kisses the sleeping streams,
And wakes them into laughter and to song"
Me it hath pleased, ;" she said, to look on thee
With pity. Meath this fair and spotless front
inert SiuNS Il pL-slOu deeper tudn LtlS PIT.
Stretch forth thine arms, lift up thy burning
eyes,
Drink deep of love, and all thy pain forget"
ITO drink of love? All, what care I for love
] that am doomed with this eternal curse?
Give me but water; will bless thy name"
what hope shall come when love is cold and
dead?"
So Venus spake in music such as wind
Doth make among the grass and summer
what profits life without the simple faith
OF souls made one in perfect sympathy?
we two shall be as gods gir5 ronnd with light,
And the strong fire of hearts that fame with
love"
Goddess, the soul within me craveth naught"
He said, and hoarse his voice rang through the
shades
81 tell thee this, though speech be grievous
pain:
Had no tongue to say want not love.
l had no tongue to burn for want Of drink"
Then Venus leaned little space across
The dark and bitter food, and on his brow
Her breath blew hot and cold, with paintings
quick,
Full OF swift passion and loves ecstacy.
. Yet think, all think" she said, OF sweet
desires,
OF rapturous longings and of burning dreams,
Among the languorOus shadows of the woods
Where strong gray trunks majestically rise
To bear on high their canopy of green,
Where sweet the winds breathe out their amor
Gus signs
Among the trembling crannies of the leaves,
And the air is heavy with the scent of flowers;
There, as thou lest half entranced by sleep,
/ II come to the-I, beautiful as light
With passionate arms and moist and clinging
To sting thy face with kisses keen as fire,
To clasp thee in these fair and rounded arms,
Upon this bosom white as untrod snow,
But warmer than dear Cyprus summer sun.
Thee shall circle round with yearning love
Til all thy senses reel as if in wine,
And the last ecstatic throbbing of thy breath
Die out in whispers amorous as mine;
And we two, flint with wild. unspokeu sweets
Drift into sleep to wake and dream again.
Wilt thou, my Tantalus, willthou love me MOVE
And in these woods he said, shall there be
brooks
That ripple over stones in lucent waves,
And dew upon the petals OF the flowers,
And rain that droppeth from the trembling
leaves3'
" Forget thy curse" she said, and think o
Forget my curser' he cried. Goddess, look
round;
Long years have fed into the buried past
Since 1, a man, gazad into womans eyes
And dreamed The golden dreams OF youth and
love
| do remember them so family now
think 1t must have been some other fool
Who was so fond among the fowers and wine.
Thou art immortal, Goddess like myself
But thy existence is for ever bright:
To thee it is no bitter curse to breathe.
Think then, of what q fate is given me.
Shut IN this pit i'll darkness and in gloom,
I listen ever to the hideous walls
OF all whom Jove has doomed to punishment.
Their sobs and means assail my helpless ears
From night till day, from day till blaeker night.
The foulest odors of the gruesonle pit
Offend my nostrils, and the cesseless gloom
Deceives my eyes with stark and horrid shapes.
Damp icy yapors float about my head,
And clammy hands of spectral forms unseen
Fall on my flesh and cause my bones to chill.
But all, within have q ceaseless fire
That burnsthe very blood up in my heart,
And makes each nerve within my stricken frame
ThTob with the white heat Of black Yulcan'S
forge.
And, mark you, this shall never, never end;
But through the tiIeless cycles of the years
My doom shall follow me without pause
This doom that links the future with the past
For see, my curse is doubled in this wise:
look back from this fetid tomb of JOY
Into the fair, sweet past of earthly life,
To see friends brothers, sisters, mothers, all
Standing with outstretched hands upon the
shores
OF those dear waters that still kiss our Greece.
And bear her purple argosies afar;
To hear the echo of the clang of arms,
The ring of spears, and thunderous shock of
shields,
And the great shouts of victory that smote
The everlasting skies, and babe the stars
To tremble in their orbits; aud to know
That these are past-irreV0cably past,
While all the future reaches out its arms
To grapple me in long embrace OF pain,
OF agony that speech could never tell,
Had tongue within my mouth to speak,
And not this crusted, smouldering lava stream.
The past. the dead, dear past, comes wandering
back
To torture me with dreams Of happy days
The future, that shall never end, rolls on,
( Each minute orbed into bursting hour,
Each hour distended 10 q thTobbiug year
Time but drop in hell eternity
No thought that is not darker than despair,
No hope but that to-ulorrow's stricken womb
viii breed sorrow greater than to-dey's:
Cursed beyond eursing, doomed beyond black
death,
Acne in Hades with this endless thirst"
he paused sore shaken by the storm of grief,
And Tor little space WIS silent; then
He said:
II thou hast come TO me in faith
To pour the balm of pity on my soul,
Give me one draught of water-only one
That this eternity of bitter pain
"a. -.