The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas. Bridges Robert
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miserable man, hear now the worst.
O weak and tearful race,{38}
Born to unhappiness, see now thy cause
Doomed and accurst!
It surely were enough, the bad and good
Together mingled, against chance and ill
To strive, and prospering by turns,
Now these, now those, now folly and now skill,
Alike by means well understood 1180
Or 'gainst all likelihood;
Loveliness slaving to the unlovely will
That overrides the right and laughs at law.
But always all in awe
And imminent dread:
Because there is no mischief thought or said,
Imaginable or unguessed,
But it may come to be; nor home of rest,
Nor hour secure: but anywhere,
At any moment; in the air, 1190
Or on the earth or sea,
Or in the fair
And tender body itself it lurks, creeps in,
Or seizes suddenly,
Torturing, burning, withering, devouring,
Shaking, destroying; till tormented life
Sides with the slayer, not to be,
And from the cruel strife
Falls to fate overpowering.
Or if some patient heart, 1200
In toilsome steps of duty tread apart,
Thinking to win her peace within herself,
And thus awhile succeed:
She must see others bleed,
At others' misery moan,
And learn the common suffering is her own,
From which it is no freedom to be freed:{39}
Nay, Nature, her best nurse,
Is tender but to breed a finer sense,
Which she may easier wound, with smart the worse 1210
And torture more intense.
And no strength for thee but the thought of duty,
Nor any solace but the love of beauty.
O Right's toil unrewarded!
O Love's prize unaccorded!
I say this might suffice,
O tearful and unstable
And miserable man,
Were't but from day to day
Thy miserable lot, 1220
This might suffice, I say,
To term thee miserable.
But thou of all thine ills too must take thought,
Must grow familiar till no curse astound thee,
With tears recall the past,
With tears the times forecast;
With tears, with tears thou hast
The scapeless net spread in thy sight around thee.
How then support thy fate,
O miserable man, if this befall, 1230
That he who loves thee and would aid thee, daring
To raise an arm for thy deliverance,
Must for his courage suffer worse than all?
In. Bravest deliverer, for thy prophecy
Has torn the veil which hid thee from my eyes,
If thyself art that spirit, of whom some things
Were darkly spoken—nor can I doubt thou art,
Being that the heaven its fire withholds not from thee
Nor time his secrets—tell me now thy name,
That I may praise thee rightly; and my late 1240{40} Unwitting words pardon thou, and these who still In blinded wonder kneel not to thy love. Pr. Speak not of love. See, I am moved with hate, And fiercest anger, which will sometimes spur The heart to extremity, till it forget That there is any joy save furious war. Nay, were there now another deed to do, Which more could hurt our enemy than this, Which here I stand to venture, here would I leave thee Conspiring at his altar, and fly off 1250 To plunge the branding terror in his soul. But now the rising passion of my will Already jars his reaching sense, already From heaven he bids his minion Hermes forth To bring his only rebel to his feet. Therefore no more delay, the time is short. In. I take, I take. 'Tis but for thee to give. Pr. O heavenly fire, life's life, the eye of day, Whose nimble waves upon the starry night Of boundless ether love to play, 1260 Carrying commands to every gliding sprite To feed all things with colour, from the ray Of thy bright-glancing, white And silver-spinning light: Unweaving its thin tissue for the bow Of Iris, separating countless hues Of various splendour for the grateful flowers To crown the hasting hours, Changing their special garlands as they choose. O spirit of rage and might, 1270 Who canst unchain the links of winter stark, And bid earth's stubborn metals flow like oil, Her porphyrous heart-veins boil; Whose arrows pierce the cloudy shields of dark; Let now this flame, which did to life awaken{41} Beyond the cold dew-gathering veils of morn, And thence by me was taken, And in this reed was borne, A smothered theft and gift to man below, Here with my breath revive, 1280 Restore thy lapsèd realm, and be the sire Of many an earthly fire. O flame, flame bright and live, Appear upon the altar as I blow. Chor. 'Twas in the marish reed. See to his mouth he sets its hollow flute And breathes therein with heed, As one who from a pipe with breathings mute Will music's voice evoke.— See, the curl of a cloud. 1290 In. The smoke, the smoke! Semichorus. Thin clouds mounting higher. In. 'Tis smoke, the smoke of fire. Semichorus. Thick they come and thicker,
Quick arise and quicker,
Higher still and higher.
Their wreaths the wood enfold.
—I see a spot of gold.
They spring from a spot of gold,
Red gold, deep among 1300
The leaves: a golden tongue.
O behold, behold,
Dancing tongues of gold,
That leaping aloft flicker,
Higher still and higher.
In. 'Tis fire, the flame of fire!
Semichorus. The blue smoke overhead
Is turned to angry red.
The fire, the fire, it stirs.
Hark, a crackling sound, 1310{42}
As when all around
Ripened pods of furze
Split in the parching sun
Their dry caps one by one,
And shed their seeds on the ground.
—Ah! what clouds arise.
Away! O come away.
The wind-wafted smoke,
Blowing all astray,
Blinds and pricks my eyes.
[Prometheus,
after writing his name on the altar, goes out unobserved.] Ah! I choke, I choke. —All the midst is rent: See, the twigs are all By the flaming spent White and gold, and fall. How they writhe, resist, Blacken, flake, and twist, Snap in gold and fall. —See the stars that mount, Momentary bright 1330 Flitting specks of light More than eye can count. Insects of the air, As in