The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas. Bridges Robert
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Thy speech is earnest: yet even if thou speak truth,
O welcome messenger of happy tidings,
And though I hear aright, yet to believe
Is hard: thou canst not know what words thou speakest
Into what ears: they never heard before
This sound but in old tales of happier times,
In sighs of prayer and faint unhearted hope:
Maybe they heard not rightly, speak again!
Pr. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day.
In. Yes, yes, again. Now let sweet Music blab 370
Her secret and give o'er; here is a trumpet
That mocks her method. Yet 'tis but the word.
Maybe thy fire is not the fire I seek;
Maybe though thou didst see it, now 'tis quenched,
Or guarded out of reach: speak yet again
And swear by heaven's truth is there fire or no;
And if there be, what means may make it mine.
Pr. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day:
But not as thou dost seek it to be found.
In. How seeking wrongly shall I seek aright? 380
Pr. Thou prayest here to Zeus, and him thou callest
Almighty, knowing he could grant thy prayer:
That if 'twere but his will, the journeying sun
Might drop a spark into thine outstretched hand:
That at his breath the splashing mountain brooks
That fall from Orneæ, and cold Lernè's pool
Would change their element, and their chill streams
Bend in their burning banks a molten flood:
That at his word so many messengers
Would bring thee fire from heaven, that not a hearth 390
In all thy land but straight would have a god
To kneel and fan the flame: and yet to him,
It is to him thou prayest.{15}
In. Therefore to him.
Pr. Is this thy wisdom, king, to sow thy seed
Year after year in this unsprouting soil?
Hast thou not proved and found the will of Zeus
A barren rock for man with prayer to plough?
In. His anger be averted! we judge not god
Evil, because our wishes please him not.
Oft our shortsighted prayers to heaven ascending 400
Ask there our ruin, and are then denied
In kindness above granting: were 't not so,
Scarce could we pray for fear to pluck our doom
Out of the merciful withholding hands.
Pr. Why then provokest thou such great goodwill
In long denial and kind silence shown?
In. Fie, fie! Thou lackest piety: the god's denial
Being nought but kindness, there is hope that he
Will make that good which is not:—or if indeed
Good be withheld in punishment, 'tis well 410
Still to seek on and pray that god relent.
Pr. O Sire of Argos, Zeus will not relent.
In. Yet fire thou say'st is on the earth this day.
Pr. Not of his knowledge nor his gift, O king.
In. By kindness of what god then has man fire?
Pr. I say but on the earth unknown to Zeus.
In. How boastest thou to know, not of his knowledge?
Pr. I boast not: he that knoweth not may boast.
In. Thy daring words bewilder sense with sound.
Pr. I thought to find thee ripe for daring deeds. 420
In. And what the deed for which I prove unripe?
Pr. To take of heaven's fire.
In. And were I ripe,
What should I dare, beseech you?
Pr. The wrath of Zeus.
In. Madman, pretending in one hand to hold
The wrath of god and in the other fire.
Pr. Thou meanest rather holding both in one.{16}
In. Both impious art thou and incredible.
Pr. Yet impious only till thou dost believe.
In. And what believe? Ah, if I could believe!
It was but now thou saidst that there was fire, 430
And I was near believing; I believed:
Now to believe were to be mad as thou.
Chorus. He may be mad and yet say true—maybe
The heat of prophecy like a strong wine
Shameth his reason with exultant speech.
Pr. Thou say'st I am mad, and of my sober words
Hast called those impious which thou fearest true,
Those which thou knowest good, incredible.
Consider ere thou judge: be first assured
All is not good for man that seems god's will. 440
See, on thy farming skill, thy country toil
Which bends to aid the willing fruits of earth,
And would promote the seasonable year,
The face of nature is not always kind:
And if thou search the sum of visible being
To find thy blessing featured, 'tis not there:
Her best gifts cannot brim the golden cup
Of expectation which thine eager arms
Lift to her mouthèd horn—what then is this
Whose wide capacity outbids the scale 450
Of prodigal beauty, so that the seeing eye
And hearing ear, retiring unamazed
Within their quiet chambers, sit to feast
With dear imagination, nor look forth
As once they did upon the varying air?
Whence is the fathering of this desire
Which mocks at fated circumstance? nay though
Obstruction lie as cumbrous as the mountains,
Nor thy particular hap hath armed desire
Against the brunt of evil—yet not for this 460
Faints man's desire: it is the unquenchable
Original cause, the immortal breath of being:{17}
Nor is there any spirit on Earth astir,
Nor 'neath the airy vault, nor yet beyond
In any dweller in far-reaching space,
Nobler or dearer than the spirit of man:
That spirit which lives in each and will not die,