The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas. Bridges Robert
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sent me hither is I that come.
Serv. I smell the matter—thou wouldst serve the house?
Pr. 'Twas for that very cause I fled my own. 131
Serv. From cruelty or fear of punishment?
Pr. Cruel was my master, for he slew his father.{7}
His punishments thou speakest of are crimes.
Serv. Thou dost well flying one that slew his father.
Pr. Thy lord, they say, is kind.
Serv. Well, thou wilt see
Thou may'st at once begin—come, give a hand.
Pr. A day of freedom is a day of pleasure:
And what thou doest have I never done,
And understanding not might mar thy work. 140
Serv. Ay true—there is a right way and a wrong
In laying wood.
Pr. Then let me see thee lay it:
The sight of a skill'd hand will teach an art.
Serv. Thou seest this faggot which I now unbind,
How it is packed within.
Pr. I see the cones
And needles of the fir, which by the wind
In melancholy places ceaselessly
Sighing are strewn upon the tufted floor.
Serv. These took I from a sheltered bank, whereon
The sun looks down at noon; for there is need 150
The things be dry. These first I spread; and then
Small sticks that snap i' the hand.
Pr. Such are enough
To burden the slow flight of labouring rooks,
When on the leafless tree-tops in young March
Their glossy herds assembling soothe the air
With cries of solemn joy and cawings loud.
And such the long-necked herons will bear to mend
Their airy platform, when the loving spring
Bids them take thought for their expected young.
Serv. See even so I cross them and cross them so: 160
Larger and by degrees a steady stack
Have built, whereon the heaviest logs may lie:
And all of sun-dried wood: and now 'tis done.
Pr. And now 'tis done, what means it now 'tis done?
Serv. Well, thus 'tis rightly done: but why 'tis so{8}
I cannot tell, nor any man here knows;
Save that our master when he sacrificeth,
As thou wilt hear anon, speaketh of fire;
And fire he saith is good for gods and men;
And the gods have it and men have it not: 170
And then he prays the gods to send us fire;
And we, against they send it, must have wood
Laid ready thus as I have shewn thee here.
Pr. To-day he sacrificeth?
Serv. Ay, this noon.
Hark! hear'st thou not? they come. The solemn flutes
Warn us away; we must not here be seen
In these our soilèd habits, yet may stand
Where we may hear and see and not be seen.
[Exeunt R.
Enter CHORUS, and from the palace Inachus bearing cakes: he comes to stand behind the altar.
CHORUS.
God of Heaven!
We praise thee, Zeus most high, 180
To whom by eternal Fate was given
The range and rule of the sky;
When thy lot, first of three
Leapt out, as sages tell,
And won Olympus for thee,
Therein for ever to dwell:
But the next with the barren sea
To grave Poseidôn fell,
And left fierce Hades his doom, to be
The lord and terror of hell. 190
(2) Thou sittest for aye
Encircled in azure bright,
Regarding the path of the sun by day,
And the changeful moon by night:{9}
Attending with tireless ears
To the song of adoring love,
With which the separate spheres
Are voicèd that turn above:
And all that is hidden under
The clouds thy footing has furl'd 200
Fears the hand that holdeth the thunder,
The eye that looks on the world.
Semichorus of youths.
Of all the isles of the sea
Is Crete most famed in story:
Above all mountains famous to me
Is Ida and crowned with glory.
There guarded of Heaven and Earth
Came Rhea at fall of night
To hide a wondrous birth
From the Sire's unfathering sight. 210
The halls of Cronos rang
With omens of coming ill,
And the mad Curêtes danced and sang
Adown the slopes of the hill.
Then all the peaks of Gnossus kindled red
Beckoning afar unto the sinking sun,
he thro' the vaporous west plunged to his bed,
Sunk, and the day was done.
But they, though he was fled,
Such light still held, as oft 220
Hanging in air aloft,
At eve from shadowed ship
The Egyptian sailor sees:
Or like the twofold tip
That o'er the topmost trees
Flares on Parnassus, and the Theban dames
Quake at the ghostly flames.{10}
Then friendly night arose
To succour Earth, and spread
Her mantle o'er the snows 230
And quenched their rosy red;
But in the east upsprings
Another light on them,
Selêné with white wings
And hueless diadem.
Little could she befriend
Her father's house and state,
Nor her weak beams defend
Hyperion from his fate.
Only where'er she shines, 240
In terror looking forth,
She sees the wailing pines