<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=530253" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Sicilian Idyll</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">(First Scene) Damon <br>I thank thee, no; <br>Already have I drunk a bowl of wine . . . <br>Nay, nay, why wouldst thou rise? <br>There rolls thy ball of worsted! Sit thee down; <br>Come, sit thee down, Cydilla, <br>And let me fetch thy ball, rewind the wool, <br>And tell thee all that happened yesterday. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Thanks, Damon; now, by Zeus, thou art so brisk, <br>It shames me that to stoop should try my bones. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>We both are old, <br>And if we may have peaceful days are blessed; <br>Few hours of bouyancy will come to break <br>The sure withdrawal from us of life's flood. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>True, true, youth looks a great way off! To think <br>It wonce was age did lie quite out of sight! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Not many days have been so beautiful <br>As yesterday, Cydilla; yet one was; <br>And I with thee broke tranced on its fine spell; <br>Thou dost remember? Yes? but not with tears, <br>Ah, not with tears, Cydilla, pray, oh, pray! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Pardon me, Damon, <br>'Tis many years since thou hast touched thereon; <br>And something stirs about thee - <br>Such air of eagerness as was thine when <br>I was more foolish than in my life, I hope <br>To ever have been at another time. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Pooh! foolish? - thou wast then so very wise <br>That, often having seen thee foolish since, <br>Wonder has made me faint that thou shouldst err. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Nay, then I erred, dear Damon; and remorse <br>Was not so slow to find me as thou deemst. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>There, mop those dear wet eyes, or thou'lt ne'er hear <br>What it was filled my heart yesterday. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Tell, Damon; since I well know that regrets <br>Hang like dull gossips round another's ear. <br>Damon </div><div style="margin:10px 0">First, thou must know that oftentimes I rise, - <br>Not heeding or not finding sleep, of watching <br>Afraid no longer to be prodigal, - <br>And gaze upon the beauty of the night. <br>Quiet hours, while dawn absorbs the waning stars, <br>Are like cold water sipped between our cups <br>Washing the jaded palate till it taste <br>The wine again. Ere the sun rose, I sat <br>Within my garden porch; my lamp was left <br>Burning beside my bed, though it would be <br>Broad day before I should return upstairs. <br>I let it burn, willing to waste some oil <br>Rather than to disturb my tranquil mood; <br>But, as the Fates determined, it was seen. - <br>Suddenly, running round the dovecote, came <br>A young man naked, breathless, through the dawn, <br>Florid with haste and wine; it was Hipparchus. <br>Yes, there he stood before me panting, rubbing <br>His heated flesh which felt the cold at once. <br>When he had breath enough, he begged me straight <br>To put the lamp out; and himself and done it <br>Ere I was on the stair. <br>Flung all along my bed, his gasping shook it <br>When I at length could sit down by his side: <br>'What cause, young sir, brings you here in this plight <br>At such an hour?' He shuddered, sighed and rolled <br>My blanket round him; then came a gush of words: <br>'The first of causes, Damon, namely Love, <br>Eldest and least resigned and most unblushing <br>Of all the turbulent impulsive gods. <br>A quarter of an hour scarce has flown <br>Since lovely arms clung round me, and my head <br>Asleep lay nested in a woman's hair; <br>My cheek still bears print of its ample coils.' <br>Athwart its burning flush he drew my fingers <br>And their tips felt it might be as he said. <br>'Oh I have had a night, a night, a night! <br>Had Paris so much bliss? <br>And oh! was Helen's kiss <br>To be compared with those I tasted? <br>Which but for me had all been wasted <br>On a bald man, a fat man, a gross man, a beast <br>To scare the best guest from the very best feast!' <br>Cydilla need not hear half that he said, <br>For he was mad awhile. <br>But having given rein to hot caprice, <br>And satyr jest, and the distempered male, <br>At length, I heard his story. <br>At sun-down certain miles without the town <br>He'd chanced upon a light-wheeled litter-car, <br>And in it there stood one <br>Yet more a woman than her garb was rich, <br>With more of youth and health than elegance. <br>'The mules,' he said, 'were beauties: she was one, <br>And cried directions to the neighbour field: <br>'O catch that big bough! Fool, not that, the next! <br>Clumsy, you've let it go! O stop it swaying, <br>The eggs will jolt out!' From the road,' said he, <br>'I could not see who thus was rated; so <br>Sprang up beside her and beheld her husband, <br>Lover or keeper, what you like to call him; - <br>A middle-aged stout man upon whose shoulders <br>Kneeled up a scraggy mule-boy slave, who was <br>The fool that could not reach a thrush's nest <br>Which they, while plucking almond, had revealed. <br>Before she knew who it could be, I said, <br>'Why yes, he is a fool, but we, fair friend, <br>Were we not foolish waiting for such fools? <br>Let us be off!' I stooped, took, shook the reins <br>With one hand, while the other clasped her waist. <br>'Ah, who?' she turned; I smiled like amorous Zeus; <br>A certain vagueness clouded her wild eyes <br>As though she saw a swan, a bull, a shower <br>Of hurried flames, and felt divinely pleased. <br>I cracked the whip and we were jolted down; <br>A kiss was snatched getting the ribbons straight; <br>We hardly heard them first begin to bawl, <br>So great our expedition towards the town: <br>We flew. I pulled up at an inn, then bid them <br>Stable my mules and chariot and prepare <br>A meal for Dives; meanwhile we would stroll <br>Down to the market. Took her arm in mine, <br>And, out of sight, hurried her through cross-lanes, <br>Bade her choose, now at a fruit, now pastry booth. <br>Until we gained my lodging she spoke little <br>But often laughed, tittering from time to time, <br>'O Bacchus, what a prank! - Just think of Cymon, <br>So stout as he is, at least five miles to walk <br>Without a carriage! - well you take things coolly' - <br>Or such appreciation nice of gifts <br>I need not boast of, since I had them gratis, <br>When my stiff door creaked open grudgingly <br>Her face first fell; the room looked bare enough. <br>Still we brought with us food and cakes; I owned <br>A little cellar of delicious wine; <br>An unasked neighbour's garden furnished flowers; <br>Jests helped me nimbly, I surpassed myself; <br>So we were friends and, having laughed, we drank, <br>Ate, sang, danced, grew wild. Soon both had one <br>Desire, effort, goal, <br>One bed, one sleep, one dream . . . <br>O Damon, Damon, both had one alarm, <br>When woken by the door forced rudely open, <br>Lit from the stair, bedazzled, glowered at, hated! <br>She clung to me; her master, husband, uncle <br>(I know not which or what he was) stood there; <br>It crossed my mind he might have been her father. <br>Naked, unarmed, I rose, and did assume <br>What dignity is not derived from clothes, <br>Bid them to quit my room, my private dwelling. <br>It was no use, for that gross beast was rich; <br>Had his been neither legal right nor moral, <br>My natural right was nought, for his she was <br>In eyes of those bribed catchpolls. Brute revenge <br>Seethed in his pimpled face: 'To gaol with him!' <br>He shouted huskily. I wrapped some clothes <br>About my shuddering bed-fellow, a sheet <br>Flung round myself; ere she was led away, <br>Had whispered to her 'Shriek, faint on the stair!' <br>Then I was seized by two dog officers. <br>That girl was worth her keep, for, going down, <br>She suddenly writhed, gasped, and had a fit. <br>My chance occurred, and I whipped through the casement; <br>All they could do was catch away the sheet; <br>I dropped a dozen feet into a bush, <br>Soon found my heels and plied them; here I am.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>A strange tale, Damon, this to tell to me <br>And introduce as thou at first began. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Thy life, Cydilla, has at all times been <br>A ceremony: this young man's <br>Discovered by free impulse, not couched in forms <br>Worn and made smooth by prudent folk long dead. <br>I love Hipparchus for his wave-like brightness; <br>He wastes himself, but till his flash is gone <br>I shall be ever glad to hear him laugh: <br>Nor could one make a Spartan of him even <br>Were one the Spartan with a will to do it. <br>Yet had there been no more than what is told, <br>Thou wouldst not now be lending ear to me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Hearing such things, I think of my poor son, <br>Which makes me far too sad to smile at folly. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>There, let me tell thee all just as it happened, <br>And of thy son I shall be speaking soon. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Delphis! Alas, are his companions still <br>No better than such ne'er-do-wells? I thought <br>His life was sager now, though he has killed <br>My hopes of seeing him a councillor. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>How thou art quick to lay claim to a sorrow! <br>Should I have come so eagerly to thee <br>If all there was to tell thee were such poor news? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Forgive me; well know I there is no end <br>To Damon's kindness; my poor boy has proved it; <br>Could but his father so have understood him! <br>Damon </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let lie the sad contents of vanished years; <br>Why with complaints reproach the helpless dead? <br>Thy husband ne'er will cross thy hopes again. <br>Come, think of what a sky made yesterday <br>The worthy dream of thrice divine Apollo! <br>Hipparchus' plan was, we should take the road <br>(As, when such mornings tempt me, is my wont) <br>And cross the hills, along the coast, toward Mylae. <br>He in disguise, a younger handier Chloe, <br>Would lead my mule; must brown his face and arms: <br>And thereon straight to wake her he was gone. <br>Their voices from her cabin crossed the yard; <br>He swears those parts of her are still well made <br>Which she keeps too well hidden when about; - <br>And she, no little pleased, that interlards, <br>Between her exclamations at his figure, <br>Reproof of gallantries half-laughed at hers. <br>Anon she titters as he dons her dress <br>Doubtless with pantomime - <br>Head-carriage and hip-swagger. <br>A wench, more conscious of her sex than grace, <br>He then rejoined me, changed beyond belief, <br>Roguish as vintage makes them; bustling helps <br>Or hinders Chloe harness to the mule; - <br>In fine bewitching both her age and mine. <br>The life that in such fellows runs to waste <br>Is like a gust that pulls about spring trees <br>And spoils your hope of fruit, while it delights <br>The sense with bloom and odour scattered, mingled <br>With salt spume savours from a crested offing. <br>The sun was not long up when we set forth <br>And, coming to the deeply shadowed gate, <br>Found catchpolls lurked there, true to his surmise. <br>Them he, his beard disguised like face-ache, sauced; <br>(Too gaily for that bandaged cheek, thought I); <br>But they, whose business was to think, <br>Were quite contented, let the hussy pass, <br>Returned her kisses blown back down the road, <br>And crowned the mirth of their outwitter's heart. <br>As the steep road wound clear above the town, <br>Fewer became those little comedies <br>To which encounteres roused him: till, at last, <br>He scarcely knew we passed some vine-dressers: <br>And I could see the sun's heat, lack of sleep, <br>And his late orgy would defeat his powers. <br>So, where the road grows level and must soon <br>Descend, I bade him climb into the car; <br>On which the mule went slower still and slower. <br>This creature, who, upon occasions, shows <br>Taste very like her master's left the highway <br>And took a grass-grown wheel-track that led down <br>Zigzag athwart the broad curved banks of lawn <br>Coating a valley between rounded hills <br>Which faced the sea abruptly in huge crags. <br>Each slope grew steeper till I left my seat <br>And led the mule; for now Hipparchus' snore <br>Tuned with the crooning waves heard from below. <br>We passed two narrow belts of wood and then <br>The sea, that first showed blue above their tops, <br>Was spread before us chequered with white waves <br>Breaking beneath on boulders which choked up <br>The narrowed issue seawards of the glen. <br>The steep path would no more admit of wheels: <br>I took the beast and tethered her to graze <br>Within the shade of a stunt ilex clump, - <br>Returned to find a vacant car; Hipparchus, <br>Uneasy on my tilting down the shafts, <br>And heated with strange clothes, had roused himself <br>And lay asleep upon his late disguise, <br>Naked 'neath the cool eaves of one huge rock <br>That stood alone, much higher up than those <br>Over, and through, and under which, the waves <br>Made music or forced milk-white floods of foam. <br>There I reclined, while vision, sound and scent <br>Won on my willing soul like sleep on joy, <br>Till all accustomed thoughts were far away <br>As from a happy child the cares of men. <br>The hour was sacred to those earlier gods <br>Who are not active, but divinely wait <br>The consummation of their first great deeds, <br>Unfolding still and blessing hours serene. <br>Presently I was gazing on a boy, <br>(Though whence he came my mind had not perceived). <br>Twelve or thirteen he seemed, with clinging feet <br>Poised on a boulder, and against the sea <br>Set off. His wide-brimmed hat of straw was arched <br>Over his massed black and abundant curls <br>By orange ribbon tied beneath his chin; <br>Around his arms and shoulders his sole dress, <br>A cloak, was all bunched up. He leapt, and lighted <br>Upon the boulder just beneath; there swayed, <br>Re-poised, <br>And perked his head like an inquisitive bird, <br>As gravely happy; of all unconscious save <br>His body's aptness for its then employment; <br>His eyes intent on shells in some clear pool <br>Or choosing where he next will plant his feet. <br>Again he leaps, his curls against his hat <br>Bounce up behind. The daintiest thing alive, <br>He rocks awhile, turned from me towards the sea; <br>Unseen I might devour him with my eyes. <br>At last he stood upon a ledge each wave <br>Spread with a sheet of foam four inches deep; <br>From minute to minute, while it bathed his feet, <br>He gazing at them saw them disappear <br>And reappear all shining and refreshed; <br>Then raised his head, beheld the ocean stretched <br>Alive before him its magnitude. <br>None but a child could have been so absorbed <br>As to escape its spell till then, none else <br>Could so have voiced glad wonder in a song: - <br>'All the waves of the sea are there! <br>In at my eyes they crush. <br>Till my head holds as fair a sea: <br>Though I shut my eyes, they are there! <br>Nay towards my lids they rush, <br>Mad to burst forth from me <br>Back to the open air! - <br>To follow them my heart needs, <br>O white-maned steeds, to ride you; <br>Lathe-shouldered steeds, <br>To the western isles astride you <br>Amyntas speeds!' <br>'Damon!' said a voice quite close to me <br>And looking up . . . as might have stood Apollo <br>In one vase garment such as shepherds wear <br>And leaning on such tall staff stood . . . Thou guessest, <br>Whose majesty as vainly was disguised <br>As must have been Apollo's minding sheep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Delphis! I know, dear Damon, it was Delphis! <br>Healthy life in the country having chased <br>His haggard looks; his speech is not wild now, <br>Nor wicked with exceptions to things honest: <br>Thy face a kindlier way than speech tells this. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Yes, dear Cydilla, he was altogether <br>What mountaineers might dream of for a king. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>But tell me, is he tutor to that boy? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>He is an elder brother to the lad. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Nay, nay, hide nothing, speak the worst at once. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>I meant no hint of ill; <br>A god in love with young Amyntas might <br>Look as he did; fathers alone feel like him: <br>Could I convey his calm and happy speech <br>Thy last suspicion would be laid to rest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Damon, see, my glad tears have drowned all fear; <br>Think'st thou he may come back and win renown, <br>And fill his father's place? <br>Not as his father filled it, <br>But with an inward spirit correspondent <br>To that contained and high imposing mien <br>Which made his father honoured before men <br>Of greater wisdom, more integrity. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>And loved before men of more kindliness! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>O Damon, far too happy am I now <br>To grace thy naughtiness by showing pain. <br>My Delphis 'owns the brains and presence too <br>That makes a Pericles!' . . . (the words are thine) <br>Had he but the will; and has he now? <br>Good Damon, tell me quick? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>He dreams not of the court, and city life <br>Is what he rails at. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Well, if he now be wise and sober-souled <br>And loved for goodness, I can rest content. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>My brain lights up to see thee happy! wait, <br>It may be I can give some notion how <br>Our poet spoke: <br>'Damon, the best of life is in thine eyes - <br>Worship of promise-laden beauty. Seems he not <br>The god of this fair scene? <br>Those waves claim such a master as that boy; <br>And these green slopes have waited till his feet <br>Should wander them, to prove they were not spread <br>In wantonness. What were this flower's prayer <br>Had it a voice? The place behind his ear <br>Would brim its cup with bliss and overbrim; <br>O, to be worn and fade beside his cheek!' - <br>'In love and happy, Delphis; and the boy?' - <br>'Loves and is happy' - <br>'You hale from?' - <br>'Ætna; <br>We have been out two days and crossed this ridge, <br>West of Mount Mycon's head. I serve his father, <br>A farmer well-to-do and full of sense, <br>Who owns a grass-farm cleared among the pines <br>North-west the cone, where even at noon in summer, <br>The slope it falls on lengthens a tree's shade. <br>To play the lyre and write and dance <br>I teach this lad; in all their country toil <br>Join, nor ask better fare than cheese, black bread, <br>Butter or curds, and milk, nor better bed <br>Than litter of dried fern or lentisk yields, <br>Such as they all sleep soundly on and dream, <br>(If e'er they dream) of places where it grew, - <br>Where they have gathered mushrooms, eaten berries, <br>Or found the sheep they lost, or killed a fox, <br>Or snared the kestrel, or so played their pipes <br>Some maid showed pleasure, sighed, nay even wept. <br>There to be poet need involve no strain, <br>For though enough of coarseness, dung, - nay, nay, <br>And suffering, too, be mingled with the life, <br>'Tis wedded to such an air, <br>Such water and sound health! <br>What else might jar or fret chimes in attuned <br>Like satyr's cloven hoof or lorn nymph's grief <br>In a choice ode. Though lust, disease and death, <br>As everywhere, are cruel tyrants, yet <br>They all wear flowers, and each sings a song <br>Such as the hilly echo loves to learn.' <br>'At last then even Delphis knows content?' <br>'Damon, not so: <br>This life has brought me health but not content. <br>That boy, whose shouts ring round us while he flings <br>Intent each sone toward yon shining object <br>Afloat inshore . . . I eat my heart to think <br>How all which makes him worthy of more love <br>Must train his ear to catch the siren croon <br>That never else had reached his upland home! <br>And he who failed in proof, how should he arm <br>Another against perils? Ah, false hope, <br>And credulous enjoyment! How should I, <br>Life's fool, while wakening ready wit in him, <br>Teach how to shun applause, and those bright eyes <br>Of women who pour in the lap of spring <br>Their whole year's substance? They can offer <br>To fill the day much fuller than I could, <br>And yet teach night surpass it. Can my means <br>Prevent the ruin of the thing I cherish? <br>What cares Zeus for him? Fate despises love. <br>Why, lads more exquisite, brimming with promise, <br>A thousand times have been lost for the lack <br>Of just the help a watchful god might give; <br>But which the best of fathers, best of mothers, <br>Of friends, of lovers cannot quite supply. <br>Powers, who swathe man's virtue up in weakness, <br>Then plunge his delicate mind in hot desire, <br>Preparing pleasure first and after shame <br>To bandage round his eyes, - these gods are not <br>The friends of men.' <br>The Delphis of old days before me stood, <br>Passionate, stormy, teeming with black thought, <br>His back turned on that sparkling summer sea, <br>His back turned on his love; and wilder words <br>And less coherent thought poured from him now. <br>Hipparchus waking took stock of the scene. <br>I watched him wend down, rubbing sleepy lids, <br>To where the boy was busy throwing stones. <br>He joined the work, but even his stronger arm <br>And heavier flints he hurled would not suffice <br>To drive that floating object nearer shore: <br>And, ere the rebel Delphis had expressed <br>Enough of anger and contempt for gods, <br>(Who, he asserted, were the dreams of men), <br>I saw the stone-throwers both take the water <br>And swimming easily attain their end. <br>The way they held their noses proved the thing <br>A tunny, belly floating upward, dead; <br>Both towed it till the current caught and swept it <br>Out far from that sweet cove; they laughing watched: <br>Then, suddenly, Amyntas screamed and Delphis <br>Turned to see him sink <br>Locked in Hipparchus' arms. <br>The god Apollo never <br>Burst through a cloud with more ease than thy son <br>Poured from his homespun garb <br>The rapid glory of his naked limbs, <br>And like a streak of lightning reached the waves: - <br>Wherein his thwarted speed appeared more awful <br>As, brought within the scope of comprehension, <br>Its progress and its purpose could be gauged. <br>Spluttering Amyntas rose, Hipparchus near him <br>Who cried 'Why coy of kisses, lovely lad? <br>I ne'er would harm thee; art thou not ashamed <br>To treat thy conquest thus?' <br>He shouted partly to drown the sea's noise, chiefly <br>The nearing Dephis to disarm. <br>His voice lost its asurance while he spoke, <br>And, as he finished, quick to escape he turned; <br>Thy son's eyes and that steady coming on, <br>As he might see them over ruffled crests, <br>Far better helped him swim <br>Than ever in his life he swam before. <br>Delphis passed by Amyntas; <br>Hipparchus was o'er taken, <br>Cuffed, ducked and shaken; <br>In vain he clung about his angry foe; <br>Held under he perforce let go: <br>I, fearing for his life, set up a whoop <br>To bring cause and effect to thy son's mind, <br>And in dire rage's room his sense returned. <br>He towed Hipparchus back like one he'd saved <br>From drowning, laid him out upon that ledge <br>Where late Amyntas stood, where now he kneeled <br>Shivering, alarmed and mute. <br>Delphis next set the drowned man's mouth to drain; <br>We worked his arms, for I had joined them; soon <br>His breathing recommenced; we laid him higher <br>On sun-warmed turf to come back to himself; <br>Then we climbed to the cart without a word. <br>The sun had dried their limbs; they, putting on <br>Their clothes, sat down; at length, I asked the lad <br>What made him keen to pelt a stinking fish. <br>Blushing, he said, 'I wondered what it was. <br>But that man, when he came to help, declared <br>'Twould prove a dead sea-nymph, and we might see, <br>By swimming out, how finely she was made. <br>I did not half believe, yet when we found <br>That foul stale fish, it made us laugh.' He smiled <br>And watched Hipparchus spit and cough and groan. <br>I moved to the car and unpacked bread and meat, <br>A cheese, some fruit, a skin of wine, two bowls. <br>Amyntas was all joy to see such things; <br>Ran off and pulled acanthus for our plates; <br>Chattering, he helped me set all forth, - was keen <br>To choose rock basin where the wine might cool; <br>Approved, was full as happy as I to praise: <br>And most he pleased me, when he set a place <br>For poor Hipparchus. Thus our eager work, <br>While Delphis, in his thoughts retired, sat frowning, <br>Grew like a home-conspiracy to trap <br>The one who bears the brunt of outside cares <br>Into the glow of cheerfulness that bathes <br>The children and the mother, - happy not <br>To forsee winter, short-commons or long debts, <br>Since they are busied for the present meal, - <br>Too young, too weak, too kind, to peer ahead, <br>Or probe the dark horizon bleak with storms. <br>Oh! I have sometimes thought there is a god <br>Who helps with lucky accidents when folk <br>Join with the little ones to chase such gloom. <br>That chance withch left Hipparchus with no clothers, <br>Surely divinity was ambushed in it? <br>When he must put on Chloe's, Amyntas rocked <br>With laughter, and Hipparchus, quick to use <br>A favourable gust, pretends confusion <br>Such as a farmer's daughter red-faced shows <br>If in the dance her dress has come unpinned. <br>She suddenly grow grave; yet, seeing there <br>Friends only, stoops behind a sister-skirt. <br>Then, having set to rights the small mishap, <br>Holding her screener's elbows, round her shoulder <br>Peeps, to bob back meeting a young man's eye. <br>All, grateful for such laughs, give Hermes thanks. <br>And even Delphis at Hipparchus smiled <br>When, from behind me, he peeped bashful forth; <br>Laughing because he was or was not like <br>Some wench . . . <br>Why, Delphis, in the name of Zeus <br>How come you here? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla What can have happened, Delphis? <br>Be brief for pity! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Delphis Nothing, mother, nothing <br>That has not happened time on time before <br>To thee, to Damon, when the life ye thought <br>With pride and pleasure yours, has proved a dream. <br>They strike down on us from the top of heaven, <br>Bear us up in their talons, up and up, <br>Drop us: we fall, are crippled, maimed for life. <br>'Our dreams'? nay, we are theirs for sport, for prey, <br>And life is the King Eagle, <br>The strongest, highest, flyer, from whose clutch <br>The fall is fatal always. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla Delphis, Delphis, <br>Good Damon had been making me so happy <br>By telling . . . </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Delphis <br>How he watched me near the zenith? <br>Three years back <br>That dream pounced on me and began to soar; <br>Having been sick, my heart had found new lies; <br>The only thoughts I then had ears for were <br>Healthy, virtuous, sweet; <br>Jaded town-wastrel, <br>A counry setting was the sole could take me <br>Three hears back. <br>Damon might have guessed <br>From such a dizzy height <br>What fall was coming. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Ah my boy, my boy! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Sit down, be patient, let us hear and aid, - <br>Has aught befallen Amyntas? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Delphis <br>Would he were dead! <br>Would that I had been brute enough to slay him. - <br>Great Zeus, Hipparchus had so turned his head. <br>His every smile and word <br>As we sat by our fire, stung my fool's heart. - <br>'How we laughed to see him curtsey, <br>Fidget strings about his waist, - <br>Giggle, his beard caught in the chlamys' hem <br>Drawing it tight about his neck, just like <br>Our Baucis.' Could not sleep <br>For thinking of the life they lead in towns; <br>He said so: when, at last, <br>He sighed from dreamland, thoughts <br>I had been day-long brooding <br>Broke into vision. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A child, a girl, <br>Beautiful, nay more than others beautiful, <br>Not meant for marriage, not for one man meant, <br>You know what she will be; <br>At six years old or seven her life is round her; <br>A company, all ages, old men, young men, <br>Whose vices she must prey on. <br>And the bent crone she will be is there too, <br>Patting her head and chuckling prophecies. - <br>O cherry lips, O wild bird eyes, <br>O gay invulnerable setter-at-nought <br>Of will, of virtue - <br>Thou art as constant a cause as is the sea, <br>As is the sun, as are the winds, as night, <br>Of opportunities not only but events; - <br>The unalterable past <br>Is full of thy contrivance, <br>Aphrodite, <br>Goddess of ruin! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No girl; nay, nay, <br>Amyntas is young, <br>Is gay, <br>Has beauty and health - and yet <br>In his sleep I have seen him smile <br>And known that his dream was vile; <br>Those eyes which brimmed over with glee <br>Till my life flowed as fresh as the sea - <br>Those eyes, gloved each in a warm live lid, <br>May be glad that their visions are hid. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I taught myself to rhyme; the trick will cling. <br>Ah, Damon, day-lit vision is more dread <br>Than those which suddenly replace the dark! <br>When the dawn filtered through our tent of boughs <br>I saw him closely wrapped in his grey cloak, <br>His head upon a pile of caked thin leaves <br>Whose life had dried up full two years ago. <br>Their flakes shook in the breath from those moist lips; <br>The vow his kiss would seal must prove, I knew <br>As friable as that pale ashen fritter; <br>It had more body than reason dare expect <br>From that so beautiful creature's best intent. <br>He waking found me no more there; and wanders <br>Through Ætna's woods to-day <br>Calling at times, or questioning charcoal burners, <br>Till he shall strike a road shall lead him home; <br>Yet all his life must be spent as he spends <br>This day in whistling, wondering, singing, chatting, <br>In the great wood, vacant and amiable. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Can it be possible that thou desertest <br>Thy love, thy ward, the work of three long years, <br>Because chance, on an April holiday <br>Has filled this boy's talk with another man, <br>And wonder at another way of life? <br>Worse than a woman's is such jealousy; <br>The lad must live! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Delphis <br>Live, live, to be sure, he must live! <br>I have lived, am a fool for my pains! <br>And yet, and yet, <br>This heart has ached to play the god for him: - <br>Mine eyes for his had sifted visible things; <br>Speech had been filtered ere it reached his ear; <br>Not in the world should he have lived, but breathed <br>Humanity's distilled quintessences; <br>The indiscriminate multitude sorted should yield him <br>Acquaintance and friend discerned, chosen by me: - <br>By me, who failed, wrecked, my youth's prime, and dragged <br>More wonderful than his gifts in the mire! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Yet if experience could not teach and save <br>Others from ignorance, why, towns would be <br>Ruins, and civil men like outlaws thieve, <br>Stab, riot, ere two generations passed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Delphis <br>Where is the Athens that Pericles loved? <br>Where are the youths that were Socrates' friends? <br>There was a town where all learnt <br>What the wisest taught! <br>Why had crude Sparta such treasonous force? <br>Could Philip of Macedon <br>Breed a true Greek of his son? <br>What honour to conquer a world <br>Where Alcibiades had failed, <br>Lead half-drilled highland hordes <br>Whose lust would inherit the wise? <br>There is nothing art's industry shaped <br>But their idleness praising it mocked. <br>Thus Fate re-assumed her command <br>And laughed at experienced law. <br>What ails man to love with such pains? <br>Why toil to create in the mind <br>Of those who shall close in his grave <br>The best that he is and has hoped? <br>The longer permission he has, <br>The nobler the structure so raised, <br>The greater its downfall. Fools, fools, <br>Where is a town such as Pericles ruled? <br>Where youths to replace those whom Socrates loved? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wise Damon, thou art silent; - Mother, thou <br>Hast only arms to cling about they son. - <br>Who can descry the purpose of a god <br>With eyes wide-open? shut them, every fool <br>Can conjure up a world arriving somewhere, <br>Resulting in what he may call perfection. <br>Evil must soon or late succeed to good. <br>There well may once have been a golden age: <br>Why should we treat it as a poet's tale? <br>Yet, in those hills that hung o'er Arcady, <br>Some roving inebriate Daimon <br>Begat him fair children <br>On nymphs of the vineyard, <br>On nymphs of the rock: - <br>And in the heart of the forest <br>Lay bound in white arms, <br>In action creative a father <br>Without a thought for his child: - <br>A purposeless god, <br>The forbear of men <br>To corrupt, ape, inherit and spoil <br>That fine race before hand with doom! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No, Damon, what's an answer worth to one <br>Whose mind has been flung open? <br>Only last night, <br>The gates of my spirit gave entrace <br>Unto the great light; <br>And I saw how virtue seduceth, <br>Not ended today or tomorrow <br>Like the passion for love, <br>Like the passion for life - <br>But perennial pain <br>And age-long effort. <br>Dead deeds are the teeth that shine <br>In the mouth that repeateth praise, <br>That spurs men to do high things <br>Since their fathers did higher before - <br>To give more than they hope to receive, <br>To slave and to die in a secular cause! <br>The mouth that smiles over-praise <br>Eats out the heart of each fool <br>To feed the great dream of a race. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet wearied peoples each in turn awake <br>From virtue, as a man from his brief love, <br>And, roughtly shaken, face the useless truth; <br>No answer to brute fact has e'er been found. <br>Slaves of your slaves, caged in your furnished rooms, <br>Ushered to meals when reft of appetite - <br>Though hungry, bound to wait a stated hour - <br>Your dearest contemplation broken off <br>By the appointed summons to your bath; <br>Racked with more thought for those whom you may flog <br>Than for those dear; obsessed by your possessions <br>With a dull round of stale anxieties; - <br>Soon maintenance grows the extreme reach of hope <br>For those held in respect, as in a vice, <br>By citizens of whom they are the pick. <br>Of men the least bond is the roving seaman <br>Who hires himself to merchantman or pirate <br>For single voyages, stays where he may please, <br>Lives his purse empty in a dozen ports, <br>And ne'er obeys the ghost of what once was! <br>His laugh chimes readily; his kiss, no symbol <br>Of aught to come, but cordial, eager, hot, <br>Leaves his tomorrow free. With him for comrade <br>Each day shall be enough, and what is good <br>Enjoyed, and what is evil borne or cursed. <br>I go, because I will not have a friend <br>Lay claim upon my leisure this day week. <br>I will be melted by each smile that takes me; <br>What though a hundred lips should meet with mine! <br>A vagabond I shall be as the moon is. <br>The sun, the waves, the winds, all birds, all beasts, <br>Are ever on the move, and take what comes; <br>They are not parasites like plants and men <br>Rooted in that which fed them yesterday. <br>Not even Memory shall follow Delphis, <br>For I will yield to all impulse save hers, <br>Therein alone subject to prescient rigour; <br>Lest she should lure me back among the dying - <br>Pilfer the present for the beggar past. <br>Free minds must bargain with each greedy moment <br>And seize the most that lies to hand at once. <br>Ye are too old to understand my words; <br>I yet have youth enough, and can escape <br>From that which sucks each individual man <br>Into the common dream. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Stay, Delphis, hear what Damon has to say! <br>He is mad! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Damon <br>Mad - yes - mad as cruelty! <br>. . . . . . <br>Poor, poor Cydilla! was it then to this <br>That all my tale was prologue? <br>Think of Amyntas, think of that poor boy, <br>Bereaved as we are both bereaved! Come, come, <br>Find him, and say that Love himself has sent us <br>To offer our poor service in his stead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cydilla <br>Good Damon, help me find my wool; my eyes <br>Are blind with tears; then I will come at once! <br>We must be doing something, for I feel <br>We both shall drown our hearts with time to spare.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Sturge+Moore">Thomas Sturge Moore</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=530253" data-title="A Sicilian Idyll de Thomas Sturge Moore" data-description="(First Scene) Damon I thank thee, no; Already have I drunk a bowl of wine . . . Nay, nay, why wouldst thou rise? There rolls thy ball of worsted! Sit thee down; Come, sit thee down, Cydilla, And let me fetch thy ball, rewind the wool, And t..."></div> </div> </div>

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