Ballads And Verses Vain by Andrew Lang
self-same kobong that is Father of you,
To take her as a bride to your ebony side ; nay, you
give her a wide berth ; quite right of you, too.
For her father, you know, is your father, the Crow, and
no blessing but woe from the wedding would spring.
Well, these rules they were made in the wattle-gum
shade, and were strictly obeyed, when the Crow was
the King.t
Thus on Earth's little ball to the Birds you owe all, yet
your gratitude 's small for the favours they 've done.
And their feathers you pill, and you eat them at will,
yes, you plunder and kill the bright birds one by
one ;
There 's a price on their head, and the Dodo is dead,
and the Moa has fled from the sight of the sun !
*Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, gave Australians their marriage laws.
Lubra, a woman ; kohong, " totem " ; or, to please Mr. Max
Miiller, " otem."
I The Crow was the Hawks rival.
POST HOMERICA
HESPEROTHEN.
By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from
the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they
know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phaeacian island,
nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert
country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land
of Phaeacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures ; and
by Circe's Isle, the places of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary
attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing ^Master Fran-
9oys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the Macraeones.
THE SEEKERS FOR PH/EACIA.
THERE is a land in the remotest day,
Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies ;
The eastern shores see faint tides fade away,
That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,
Make life, â the lands beneath the blue of common skies.
103
POST HOMERICA.
But in the west is a mysterious sea,
(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known ?)
With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.
Eastward the human cares of house and home,
Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves;
Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,
And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves.
Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
The Gods are careless of the days and death
Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas ;
The Gods are heedless of their painful breath.
And love them not, for they are not as these ;
But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live
At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
Most like the Gods ; and they have gifts to give,
Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers.
And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.
104
POST HOMERIC/1.
It is a quiet midland ; in the cool
Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed,
To watch the maids and young men beautiful
Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid.
For they are near of kin to Gods, and undismayed.
Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh
The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep !
But with a mist they hide them wondrously.
And far the path and dim to where they sleep, â
The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep.
THE DEPARTURE FROM PH/EACIA.
THE PH^ACIANS.
WHY from the dreamy meadows,
More fair than any dream,
Why will you seek the shadows
Beyond the ocean stream ?
Through straits of storm and peril,
Through firths unsailed before,
Why make you for the sterile.
The dark Kimmerian shore ?
There no bright streams are flowing,
There day and night are one,
No harvest time, no sowing,
No sight of any sun ;
No sound of song or tabor,
No dance shall greet you there ;
No noise of mortal labour,
Breaks on the blind chill air.
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POST HOMERICA.
Are ours not happy places,
Where Gods with mortals trod ?
Saw not our sires the faces
Of many a present God ?
THE SEEKERS.
Nay, now no God comes hither,
In shape that men may see ;
They fare we know not whither,
We know not what they be.
Yea, though the sunset lingers
Far in your fairy glades,
Though yours the sweetest singers,
Though yours the kindest maids.
Yet here be the true shadows.
Here in the doubtful light ;
Amid the dreamy meadows
No shadow haunts the night.
We seek a city splendid.
With light beyond the sun ;
Or lands where dreams are ended.
And works and days are done.
107
A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE.*
FAIR white bird, what song art thou singmg
In wintry weather of lands o'er sea ?
Dear white bird, what way art thou winging,
Where no grass grows, and no green tree ?
I looked at the far off fields and grey.
There grew no tree but the cypress tree,
That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May,
And whoso looks on it, woe is he.
And whoso eats of the fruit thereof
Has no more sorrow, and no more love ;
And who sets the same in his garden stead,
In a little space he is waste and dead.
We seek a city splendid,
With light beyond the sun ;
Or lands where dreams are ended,
And works and days are done.
* From the Romaic.
io8
THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE
SECOND TIME.
THE weary sails a moment slept,
The oars were silent for a space,
As past Hesperian shores we swept,
That were as a remembered face
Seen after lapse of hopeless years.
In Hades, when the shadows meet.
Dim through the mist of many tears,
And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.
So seemed the half-remembered shore,
That slumbered, mirrored in the blue.
With havens where we touched of yore.
And ports that over well we knew.
Then broke the calm before a breeze
That sought the secret of the west ;
And listless all we swept the seas
Towards the Islands of the Blest.
109
POST HOMERICA.
Beside a golden sanded bay
We saw the Sirens, very fair
The flowery hill whereon they lay,
The flowers set upon their hair.
Their old sweet song came down the wind,
Remembered music waxing strong.
Ah now no need of cords to bind,
No need had we of Orphic song.
It once had seemed
To lay our lives down at their feet,
That dying we might hear them sing,
And dying see their faces sweet;
But now, we glanced, and passing by,
No care had we to tarry long ;
Faint hope, and rest, and memory
Were more than any Siren's song.
CIRCE'S ISLE REVISITED.
AH, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried;
Ah, Circe, Circe ! but no voice repHed ;
No voice from bowers o'ergrown and ruinous
As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.
There was no sound of singing in the air ;
Faded or fled the maidens that were fair,
No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us,
No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.
The perfume, and the music, and the flame
Had passed away; the memory of shame
Alone abode, and stings of faint desire,
And pulses of vague quiet went and came.
Ah, Circe ! in thy sad changed fairy place.
Our dead Youth came and looked on us a space,
With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire,
And wasted hair about a weary face.
POST HOMERICA.
Why had we ever sought the magic isle
That seemed so happy in the days erewhile?
Why did we ever leave it, where we met
A world of happy wonders in one smile ?
Back to the westward and the waning light
We turned, we fled ; the solitude of night
Was better than the infinite regret,
In fallen places of our dead delight.
THE LIMIT OF LANDS.
BETWEEN the circling ocean sea
And the poplars of Persephone
There lies a strip of barren sand,
Flecked with the sea's last spray, and strown
With waste leaves of the poplars, blown
From gardens of the shadow land.
With altars of old sacrifice
The shore is set, in mournful wise
The mists upon the ocean brood ;
Between the water and the air
The clouds are born that float and fare
Between the water and the wood.
Upon the grey sea never sail
Of mortals passed within our hail.
Where the last weak waves faint and flow;
We heard within the poplar pale
The murmur of a doubtful wail
Of voices loved so long ago.
POST HOMERICA.
We scarce had care to die or live,
We had no honey cake to give,
No wine of sacrifice to shed ;
There Ues no new path over sea,
And now we know how faint they be.
The feasts and voices of the Dead.
Ah, flowers and dance ! ah, sun and snow !
Glad life, sad life we did forego
To dream of quietness and rest ;
Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here
Poured light and perfume through the drear
Pale year, and wan land of the west.
Sad youth, that let the spring go by
Because the spring is swift to fly.
Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love.
Behold how sadder far is this.
To know that rest is nowise bliss,
And darkness is the end thereof.
THE SHADE OF HELEN.
Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in Egypt ; for the Gods,
having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and shadows, sent the
same to be wife to Paris. For this shadow then the Greeks and Trojans slew
each other.
(Written in the Pyrenees.)
WHY from the quiet hollows of the hills,
And extreme meeting place of light and shade,
Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became
Clouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beams
And dying glories of the sun would dwell.
Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,
Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,
And borne me from the silent shadowy hills,
Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,
To harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?
One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,
Made harsh, made keen with love that knows me not.
And some strange force, within me or around,
"5
POST HOMERICA.
Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,
And somewhere there is fever in the halls.
That troubles me, for no such trouble came
To vex the cool far hollows of the hills.
The foolish folk crowd round me, and they cry.
That house, and wife, and lands, and all Troy town,
Are little to lose, if they may hold me here.
And see me flit, a pale and silent shade.
Among the streets bereft, and helpless shrines.
At other hours another life seems mine,
Where one great river runs unswollen of rain,
By pyramids of unremembered kings,
And homes of men obedient to the Dead.
There dark and quiet faces come and go
Around me, then again the shriek of arms,
And all the turmoil of the Ilian men.
What are they? even shadows such as 1.
What make they? Even this â the sport of Gods â
The sport of Gods, however free they seem.
Ah would the game were ended, and the light,
The blinding light, and all too mighty suns.
Withdrawn, and I once more with sister shades.
Unloved, forgotten, mingled with the mist.
Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.
ii6
PISIDICE.
The incident is from the Love Stories of Partheniiis, who preserved fragments
of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied
with Troy.
THE daughter of the Lesbian king
Within her bower she watched the war,
Far off she heard the arrows ring,
The smitten harness ring afar ;
And, fighting from the foremost car,
Saw one that smote where all must flee ;
More fair than the Immortals are