Lucretius
Lines:282Movement:Victorian
Lucilla, wedded to Lucretius, foundHer master cold; for when the morning flushOf passion and the first embrace had diedBetween them, tho' he loved her none the less,Yet often when the woman heard his footReturn from pacings in the field, and ranTo greet him with a kiss, the master tookSmall notice, or austerely, for his mindHalf buried in some weightier argument,Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the riseAnd long roll of the hexameter -- he pastTo turn and ponder those three hundred scrollsLeft by the Teacher, whom he held divine.She brook'd it not, but wrathful, petulantDreaming some rival, sought and found a witchWho brew'd the philtre which had power, they saidTo lead an errant passion home again.And this, at times, she mingled with his drink,And this destroy'd him; for the wicked brothConfused the chemic labor of the blood,And tickling the brute brain within the man'sMade havoc among those tender cells, and check'dHis power to shape. He loathed himself, and onceAfter a tempest woke upon a mornThat mock'd him with returning calm, and cried: "Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the rainRushing; and once the flash of a thunderbolt --Methought I never saw so fierce a fork --Struck out the streaming mountain-side, and show'dA riotous confluence of watercoursesBlanching and billowing in a hollow of it,Where all but yester-eve was dusty-dry. "Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams!For thrice I waken'd after dreams. PerchanceWe do but recollect the dreams that comeJust ere the waking. Terrible: for it seem'dA void was made in Nature, all her bondsCrack'd; and I saw the flaring atom-streamsAnd torrents of her myriad universe,Ruining along the illimitable inane,Fly on to clash together again, and makeAnother and another frame of thingsFor ever. That was mine, my dream, I knew it --Of and belonging to me, as the dogWith inward yelp and restless forefoot pliesHis function of the woodland; but the next!I thought that all the blood by Sylla shedCame driving rainlike down again on earth,And where it dash'd the reddening meadow, sprangNo dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth,For these I thought my dream would show to me,But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art,Hired animalisms, vile as those that madeThe mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies worseThan aught they fable of the quiet Gods.And hands they mixt, and yell'd and round me droveIn narrowing circles till I yell'd againHalf-suffocated, and sprang up, and saw --Was it the first beam of my latest day? "Then, then, from utter gloom stood out theThe breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a swordNow over and now under, now direct,Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down shamedAt all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire,The fire that left a roofless Ilion,Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I woke. "Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine,Because I would not one of thine own doves,Not even a rose, were offered to thee? thine,Forgetful how my rich proemion makesThy glory fly along the Italian field,In lays that will outlast thy deity? "Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongueTrips, or I speak profanely. Which of theseAngers thee most, or angers thee at all?Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloofFrom envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn,Live the great life which all our greatest fainWould follow, centred in eternal calm. "Nay, if thou canst,Goddess, like ourselvesTouch, and be touch'd, then would I cry to theeTo kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender armsRound him, and keep him from the lust of bloodThat makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome. "Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant riot herWhom all the pines of Ida shook to seeSlide from that quiet heaven of hers, and temptThe Trojan, while his neatherds were abroadNor her that o'er her wounded hunter weptHer deity false in human-amorous tears;Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiterDecided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods,Poet-like, as the great Sicilian calledCalliope to grace his golden verse --Ay, and this Kypris also -- did I takeThat popular name of thine to shadow forthThe all-generating powers and genial heatOf Nature, when she strikes thro' the thick bloodOf cattle, and light is large, and lambs are gladNosing the mother's udder, and the birdMakes his heart voice amid the blaze of flowers;Which things appear the work of mighty Gods. "The Gods! and if I go my work is leftUnfinish'd -- if I go. The Gods, who hauntThe lucid interspace of world and world,Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,Nor ever falls the least white star of mowNor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to marTheir sacred everlasting calm! and such,Not all so fine, nor so divine a calmNot such, nor all unlike it, man may gainLetting his own life go. The Gods, the GodslIf all be atoms, how then should the GodsBeing atomic not be dissoluble,Not follow the great law? My master heldThat Gods there are, for all men so believe.I prest my footsteps into his, and meantSurely to lead my Memmius in a trainOf fiowery clauses onward to the proofThat Gods there are, and deathless. Meant? I meant?I have forgotten what I meant, my mindStumbles, and all my faculties are lamed. "Look where another of our Gods, the SunApollo, Delius, or of older useAll-seeing Hyperion -- what you will --Has mounted yonder; since he never sware,Except his wrath were wreak'd on wretched man,That he would only shine among the deadHereafter -- tales! for never yet on earthCould dead flesh creep, or bits of roasting oxMoan round the spit -- nor knows he what he sees;King of the East altho' he seem, and girtWith song and flame and fragrance, slowly liftsHis golden feet on those empurpled stairsThat climb into the windy halls of heavenAnd here he glances on an eye new-born,And gets for greeting but a wail of pain;And here he stays upon a freezing orbThat fain would gaze upon him to the last;And here upon a yellow eyelid fallenAnd closed by those who mourn a friend in vain,Not thankful that his troubles are no more.And me, altho' his fire is on my faceBlinding, he sees not, nor at all can tellWhether I mean this day to end myself.Or lend an ear to Plato where he says,That men like soldiers may not quit the postAllotted by the Gods. But he that holdsThe Gods are careless, wherefore need he careGreatly for them, nor rather plunge at once,Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and sinkPast earthquake -- ay, and gout and stone, that breakBody toward death, and palsy, death-in-life,And wretched age -- and worst disease of all,These prodigies of myriad nakednesses,And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable,Abominable, strangers at my hearthNot welcome, harpies miring every dish,The phantom husks of something foully done,And fleeting thro' the boundless universe,And blasting the long quiet of my breastWith animal heat and dire insanity? "How should the mind, except it loved them, claspThese idols to herself? or do they flyNow thinner, and now thicker, like the flakesIn a fall of snow, and so press in, perforceOf multitude, as crowds that in an hourOf civic tumult jam the doors, and bearThe keepers down, and throng, their rags and theThe basest, far into that council-hallWhere sit the best and stateliest of the land? ³Can I not fling this horror off me again,Seeing with how great ease Nature can smileBalmier and nobler from her bath of storm,At random ravage? and how easilyThe mountain there has cast his cloudy slough,Now towering o'er him in serenest air,A mountain o'er a mountain, -- ay, and withinAll hollow as the hopes and fears of men? "But who was he that in the garden snaredPicus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a taleTo laugh at -- more to laugh at in myself --For look! what is it? there? yon arbutusTotters; a noiseless riot underneathStrikes through the wood, sets all the tops quivering -- ;The mountain quickens into Nymph and Faun,And here an Oread -- how the sun delightsTo glance and shift about her slippery sides,And rosy knees and supple roundedness,And budded bosom-peaks -- who this way runsBefore the rest! -- a satyr, a satyr, see,Follows; but him I proved impossibleTwy-natured is no nature. Yet he drawsNearer and nearer, and I scan him nowBeastlier than any phantom of his kindThat ever butted his rough brother-bruteFor lust or lusty blood or provender.I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and sheLoathes him as well; such a precipitate heel,Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle-wing,Whirls her to me -- ;but will she fling herselfShameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot! nay,Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilderness, And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I wish --What? -- ;that the bush were leafless? or to whelmAll of them in one massacre? O ye GodsI know you careless, yet, behold, to youFrom childly wont and ancient use I call --I thought I lived securely as yourselves --No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey-spite,No madness of ambition, avarice, none;No larger feast than under plane or pineWith neighbors laid along the grass, to takeOnly such cups as left us friendly-warm,Affirming each his own philosophyNothing to mar the sober majestiesOf settled, sweet, Epicurean life.But now it seems some unseen monster laysHis vast and filthy hands upon my will,Wrenching it backward into his, and spoilsMy bliss in being; and it was not great,For save when shutting reasons up in rhythm,Or Heliconian honey in living words,To make a truth less harsh, I often grewTired of so much within our little lifeOr of so little in our little life --Poor little life that toddles half an hourCrown'd with a flower or two, and there an end --And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade,Why should I, beastlike as I find myself,Not manlike end myself? -- our privilege -- ;What beast has heart to do it? And what manWhat Roman would be dragg'd in triumph thus?Not I; not he, who bears one name with herWhose death-blow struck the dateless doom of kings,When, brooking not the Tarquin in her veins,She made her blood in sight of CollatineAnd all his peers, flushing the guiltless air,Spout from the maiden fountain in her heart.And from it sprang the Commonwealth, which breaksAs I am breaking now! "And therefore nowLet her, that is the womb and tomb of allGreat Nature, take, and forcing far apartThose blind beginnings that have made me man,Dash them anew together at her willThro' all her cycles -- into man once more,Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower.But till this cosmic order everywhereShatter'd into one earthquake m one dayCracks all to pieces, -- and that hour perhapsIs not so far when momentary manShall seem no more a something to himself,But he, his hopes and hates, his homes and fanesAnd even his bones long laid within the grave,The very sides of the grave itself shall pass,Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void,Into the unseen for ever, -- till that hour,My golden work in which I told a truthThat stays the rolling Ixionian wheel,And numbs the Fury's ringlet-snake, and plucksThe mortal soul from out immortal hellShall stand. Ay, surely; then it fails at lastAnd perishes as I must, for O ThouPassionless bride, divine Tranquillity,Yearn'd after by the wisest of the wiseWho fail to find thee, being as thou artWithout one pleasure and without one pain,Howbeit I know thou surely must be mineOr soon or late, yet out of season, thusI woo thee roughly, for thou carest notHow roughly men may woo thee so they win -- ;Thus -- thus -- the soul flies out and dies in the air With that he drove the knife into his side.She heard him raging, heard him fall, ran in,Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herselfAs having fail'd in duty to him, shriek'dThat she but meant to win him back, fell on himClasp'd, kiss'd him, wail'd. He answer'd, "Care not thou!Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well!"