Browning's Shorter Poems Part 6

How,--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some-- Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens--Sparta love thee? did Sparta respond?

Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, Malice,--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood Quivering,--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood: "Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? 30 Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 'Ye must'!" 32

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last! 33 "Has Persia come,--does Athens ask aid,--may Sparta befriend?

Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake!

Count we no time lost time which lags thro' respect to the G.o.ds!

Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast: Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend." 40

Athens,--except for that sparkle,--thy name, I had mouldered to as.h.!.+

That sent a blaze thro' my blood; off, off and away was I back, --Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!

Yet "O G.o.ds of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rus.h.i.+ng past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile?

Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay,--I bid you cease to en-wreathe Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot, 50 You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!

Rather I hail thee, Parnes,--trust to thy wild waste tract! 52 Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave No deity deigns to drape with verdure?--at least I can breathe, Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge; Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.

Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: 60 "Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?

Athens to aid? Tho' the dive were thro' Erebos, thus I obey-- 62 Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan!

Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cus.h.i.+oned his hoof; All the great G.o.d was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.

"Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl: 70 "Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?"! he gracious began: "How is it,--Athens, only in h.e.l.las, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!

Wherefore? Than I what G.o.ds.h.i.+p to Athens more helpful of old?

Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!

Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-G.o.d saith: When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--Is cast in the sea, Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least, Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!' 80

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'"

(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear --Fennel,--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode), "While, as for thee..." But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto-- Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew.

Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road; Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!

Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of Greece, 89 Whose limbs did duty indeed,--what gift is promised thyself? 90 Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!"

Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!

Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,-- Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep, Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,-- 100 Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,-- Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep Close to my knees,--recount how the G.o.d was awful yet kind, Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day: So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis! 106 Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his s.h.i.+eld, Ran like fire once more: and the s.p.a.ce 'twixt the Fennel-field 109 And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, 110 Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine thro' clay, Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.

So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the n.o.ble strong man Who could race like a G.o.d, bear the face of a G.o.d, whom a G.o.d loved so well, He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute: "Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed. 120

MY STAR

All that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) 4 Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: 10 They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. 11 What matter to me if their star is a world?

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

EVELYN HOPE

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the gla.s.s; Little has yet been changed, I think: The shutters are shut, no light may pa.s.s Save two long rays thro' the hinge's c.h.i.n.k.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; 10 It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till G.o.d's hand beckoned unawares,-- And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?

What, your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope, Made you of spirit, fire and dew-- 20 And just because I was thrice as old And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was naught to each, must I be told?

We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for G.o.d above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love: I claim you still, for my own love's sake!

Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few: 30 Much is to learn, much, to forget Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come, at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth in the years long still, That body and soul so pure and gay?

Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geranium's red-- And what would you do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Given up myself so many times, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed me: And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!

What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seemed full as it could hold; 50 There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.

So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep: See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

There, that is our secret: go to sleep!

You will wake, and remember, and understand.