The Strayed Reveller

Faster, faster,O Circe, goddess,Let the wild, thronging train,The bright processionOf eddying forms,Sweep through my soul!

Thou standest, smilingDown on me! thy right arm,Leaned up against the column there,Props thy soft cheek;Thy left holds, hanging loosely,The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,I held but now.

Is it then eveningSo soon? I see, the night-dews,Clustered in thick beads, dimThe agate brooch-stonesOn thy white shoulder;The cool night-wind, too,Blows through the portico,Stirs thy hair, goddess,Waves thy white robe!

When the white dawn firstThrough the rough fir-planksOf my hut, by the chestnuts,Up at the valley-head,Came breaking, goddess!I sprang up, I threw round meMy dappled fawn-skin;Passing out, from the wet turf,Where they lay, by the hut door,I snatched up my vine-crown, my fir-staff,All drenched in dew,--Came swift down to joinThe rout early gatheredIn the town, round the temple,Iacchus’ white faneOn yonder hill.

Quick I passed, followingThe woodcutters’ cart-trackDown the dark valley. I sawOn my left, through the beeches,Thy palace, goddess,Smokeless, empty!Trembling, I entered; beheldThe court all silent,The lions sleeping,On the altar this bowl.I drank, goddess!And sank down here, sleeping,On the steps of thy portico.

Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou?Thou lovest it, then, my wine?Wouldst more of it? See how glows,Through the delicate, flushed marble,The red creaming liquor,Strewn with dark seeds!Drink, then! I chide thee not,Deny thee not my bowl.Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so!Drink--drink again!

Thanks, gracious one!Ah, the sweet fumes again!More soft, ah me!More subtle-winding,Than Pan’s flute-music!Faint--faint! Ah me,Again the sweet sleep!

Hist! Thou--within there!Come forth, Ulysses!Art tired with hunting?While we range the woodland,See what the day brings.

Ever new magic!Hast thou then lured hither,Wonderful goddess, by thy art,The young, languid-eyed Ampelus,Iacchus’ darling,Or some youth beloved of Pan,Of Pan and the nymphs;That he sits, bending downwardHis white, delicate neckTo the ivy-wreathed margeOf thy cup; the bright, glancing vine-leavesThat crown his hair,Falling forward, minglingWith the dark ivy-plants;His fawn-skin, half untied,Smeared with red wine-stains? Who is he,That he sits, overweighedBy fumes of wine and sleep,So late, in thy portico?What youth, goddess,--what guestOf gods or mortals?

Who speaks? Ah! who comes forthTo thy side, goddess, from within?How shall I name him,--This spare, dark-featured,Quick-eyed stranger?Ah! and I see tooHis sailor’s bonnet,His short coat, travel-tarnished,With one arm bare!--Art thou not he, whom fameThis long time rumorsThe favored guest of Circe, brought by the waves?Art thou he, stranger,--The wise Ulysses,Laertes’ son?

I am Ulysses.And thou too, sleeper?Thy voice is sweet.It may be thou hast followedThrough the islands some divine bard,By age taught many things,--Age, and the Muses;And heard him delightingThe chiefs and peopleIn the banquet, and learned his songs,Of gods and heroes,Of war and arts,And peopled cities,Inland, or builtBy the gray sea. If so, then hail!I honor and welcome thee.

The gods are happy.They turn on all sidesTheir shining eyes,And see below themThe earth and men.

They see TiresiasSitting, staff in hand,On the warm, grassyAsopus bank,His robe drawn overHis old sightless head,Revolving inlyThe doom of Thebes.

They see the centaursIn the upper glensOf Pelion, in the streamsWhere red-berried ashes fringeThe clear-brown shallow pools,With streaming flanks, and headsReared proudly, snuffingThe mountain wind.

They see the IndianDrifting, knife in hand,His frail boat moored toA floating isle thick-mattedWith large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants,And the dark cucumber.He reaps and stows them,Drifting--drifting; round him,Round his green harvest-plot,Flow the cool lake-waves,The mountains ring them.

They see the ScythianOn the wide steppe, unharnessingHis wheeled house at noon.He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal,--Mares’ milk, and breadBaked on the embers. All around,The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starredWith saffron and the yellow hollyhockAnd flag-leaved iris-flowers.Sitting in his cartHe makes his meal; before him, for long miles,Alive with bright green lizards,And the springing bustard-fowl,The track, a straight black line,Furrows the rich soil; here and thereClusters of lonely moundsTopped with rough-hewn,Gray, rain-bleared statues, overpeerThe sunny waste.

They see the ferryOn the broad, clay-ladenLone Chorasmian stream; thereon,With snort and strain,Two horses, strongly swimming, towThe ferry-boat, with woven ropesTo either bowFirm-harnessed by the mane; a chief,With shout and shaken spear,Stands at the prow, and guides them; but asternThe cowering merchants in long robesSit pale beside their wealthOf silk-bales and of balsam-drops,Of gold and ivory,Of turquoise-earth, and amethyst,Jasper and chalcedony,And milk-barred onyx-stones.The loaded boat swings groaningIn the yellow eddies;The gods behold them.

They see the heroesSitting in the dark shipOn the foamless, long-heaving,Violet sea,At sunset nearingThe Happy Islands.

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

They too can seeTiresias; but the gods,Who gave them vision,Added this law:That they should bear tooHis groping blindness,His dark foreboding,His scorned white hairs;Bear Hera’s angerThrough a life lengthenedTo seven ages.

They see the centaursOn Pelion: then they feel,They too, the maddening wineSwell their large veins to bursting; in wild painThey feel the biting spearsOf the grim Lapithæ, and Theseus, drive,Drive crashing through their bones; they feel,High on a jutting rock in the red stream,Alcmena’s dreadful sonPly his bow. Such a priceThe gods exact for song:To become what we sing.

They see the IndianOn his mountain lake; but squallsMake their skiff reel, and wormsIn the unkind spring have gnawnTheir melon-harvest to the heart. They seeThe Scythian; but long frostsParch them in winter-time on the bare steppe,Till they too fade like grass; they crawlLike shadows forth in spring.

They see the merchantsOn the Oxus-stream; but careMust visit first them too, and make them pale:Whether, through whirling sand,A cloud of desert robber-horse have burstUpon their caravan; or greedy kings,In the walled cities the way passes through,Crushed them with tolls; or fever-airs,On some great river’s marge,Mown them down, far from home.

They see the heroesNear harbor; but they shareTheir lives, and former violent toil in Thebes,--Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy;Or where the echoing oarsOf Argo firstStartled the unknown sea.

The old SilenusCame, lolling in the sunshine,From the dewy forest-coverts,This way, at noon.Sitting by me, while his faunsDown at the water-sideSprinkled and smoothedHis 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-haired mænad,Sometimes a faun with torches,And sometimes, for a moment,Passing through the dark stemsFlowing-robed, the beloved,The desired, 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-tossed wanderer!Who can stand still?Ye fade, ye swim, ye waver before me--The cup again!

Faster, faster,O Circe, goddess,Let the wild, thronging train,The bright processionOf eddying forms,Sweep through my soul!