| |
[First published 1849. Reprinted 1853, ’54, ’57.]
‘NOT 1 by the justice that my father spurn’d, | |
| Not for the thousands whom my father slew, | |
| Altars unfed and temples overturn’d, | |
| Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks were due; | |
| Fell this late voice from lips that cannot lie, | 5 |
| Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny. | |
| |
| I will unfold my sentence and my crime. | |
| My crime, that, rapt in reverential awe, | |
| I sate obedient, in the fiery prime | |
| Of youth, self-govern’d, at the feet of Law; | 10 |
| Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings, | |
| By contemplation of diviner things. | |
| |
| My father lov’d injustice, and liv’d long; | |
| Crown’d with grey hairs he died, and full of sway. | |
| I lov’d the good he scorn’d, and hated wrong: | 15 |
| The Gods declare my recompense to-day. | |
| I look’d for life more lasting, rule more high; | |
| And when six years are measur’d, lo, I die! | |
| |
| Yet surely, O my people, did I deem | |
| Man’s justice from the all-just Gods was given: | 20 |
| A light that from some upper fount did beam, | |
| Some better archetype, whose seat was heaven; | |
| A light that, shining from the blest abodes, | |
| Did shadow somewhat of the life of Gods. | |
| |
| Mere phantoms of man’s self-tormenting heart, | 25 |
| Which on the sweets that woo it dares not feed: | |
| Vain dreams, that quench our pleasures, then depart, | |
| When the dup’d soul, self-master’d, claims its meed: | |
| When, on the strenuous just man, Heaven bestows, | |
| Crown of his struggling life, an unjust close. | 30 |
| |
| Seems it so light a thing then, austere Powers, | |
| To spurn man’s common lure, life’s pleasant things? | |
| Seems there no joy in dances crown’d with flowers, | |
| Love, free to range, and regal banquetings? | |
| Bend ye on these, indeed, an unmov’d eye, | 35 |
| Not Gods but ghosts, in frozen apathy? | |
| |
| Or is it that some Power, too wise, too strong, | |
| Even for yourselves to conquer or beguile, | |
| Whirls earth, and heaven, and men, and gods along, | |
| Like the broad rushing of the insurged 2 Nile? | 40 |
| And the great powers we serve, themselves may be | |
| Slaves of a tyrannous Necessity? | |
| |
| Or in mid-heaven, perhaps, your golden cars, | |
| Where earthly voice climbs never, wing their flight, | |
| And in wild hunt, through mazy tracts of stars, | 45 |
| Sweep in the sounding stillness of the night? | |
| Or in deaf ease, on thrones of dazzling sheen, | |
| Drinking deep draughts of joy, ye dwell serene? | |
| |
| Oh, wherefore cheat our youth, if thus it be, | |
| Of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream? | 50 |
| Stringing vain words of powers we cannot see, | |
| Blind divinations of a will supreme; | |
| Lost labour: when the circumambient gloom | |
| But hides, if Gods, Gods careless of our doom? | |
| |
| The rest I give to joy. Even while I speak | 55 |
| My sand runs short; and as yon star-shot ray, | |
| Hemm’d by two banks of cloud, peers pale and weak, | |
| Now, as the barrier closes, dies away; | |
| Even so do past and future intertwine, | |
| Blotting this six years’ space, which yet is mine. | 60 |
| |
| Six years—six little years—six drops of time— | |
| Yet suns shall rise, and many moons shall wane, | |
| And old men die, and young men pass their prime, | |
| And languid Pleasure fade and flower again; | |
| And the dull Gods behold, ere these are flown, | 65 |
| Revels more deep, joy keener than their own. | |
| |
| Into the silence of the groves and woods | |
| I will go forth; but something would I say— | |
| Something—yet what I know not: for the Gods | |
| The doom they pass revoke not, nor delay; | 70 |
| And prayers, and gifts, and tears, are fruitless all, | |
| And the night waxes, and the shadows fall. | |
| |
| Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king. | |
| I go, and I return not. But the will | |
| Of the great Gods is plain; and ye must bring | 75 |
| Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil | |
| Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise, | |
| The praise of Gods, rich boon! and length of days.’ | |
| |
| —So spake he, half in anger, half in scorn; | |
| And one loud cry of grief and of amaze | 80 |
| Broke from his sorrowing people: so he spake; | |
| And turning, left them there; and with brief pause, | |
| Girt with a throng of revellers, bent his way | |
| To the cool region of the groves he lov’d. | |
| There by the river banks he wander’d on, | 85 |
| From palm-grove on to palm-grove, happy trees, | |
| Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneath | |
| Burying their unsunn’d stems in grass and flowers: | |
| Where in one dream the feverish time of Youth | |
| Might fade in slumber, and the feet of Joy | 90 |
| Might wander all day long and never tire: | |
| Here came the king, holding high feast, at morn, | |
| Rose-crown’d; and ever, when the sun went down, | |
| A hundred lamps beam’d in the tranquil gloom, | |
| From tree to tree, all through the twinkling grove, | 95 |
| Revealing all the tumult of the feast, | |
| Flush’d guests, and golden goblets, foam’d with wine; | |
| While the deep-burnish’d foliage overhead | |
| Splinter’d the silver arrows of the moon. | |
| It may be that sometimes his wondering soul | 100 |
| From the loud joyful laughter of his lips | |
| Might shrink half startled, like a guilty man | |
| Who wrestles with his dream; as some pale Shape, | |
| Gliding half hidden through the dusky stems, | |
| Would thrust a hand before the lifted bowl, | 105 |
| Whispering, ‘A little space, and thou art mine.’ | |
| It may be on that joyless feast his eye | |
| Dwelt with mere outward seeming; he, within, | |
| Took measure of his soul, and knew its strength, | |
| And by that silent knowledge, day by day, | 110 |
| Was calm’d, ennobled, comforted, sustain’d. | |
| It may be; but not less his brow was smooth, | |
| And his clear laugh fled ringing through the gloom, | |
| And his mirth quail’d not at the mild reproof | |
| Sigh’d out by Winter’s sad tranquillity; | 115 |
| Nor, pall’d with its own fullness, ebb’d and died | |
| In the rich languor of long summer days; | |
| Nor wither’d, when the palm-tree plumes that roof’d | |
| With their mild dark his grassy banquet-hall, | |
| Bent to the cold winds of the showerless Spring; | 120 |
| No, nor grew dark when Autumn brought the clouds. | |
| So six long years he revell’d, night and day; | |
| And when the mirth wax’d loudest, with dull sound | |
| Sometimes from the grove’s centre echoes came, | |
| To tell his wondering people of their king; | 125 |
| In the still night, across the steaming flats, | |
| Mix’d with the murmur of the moving Nile. | |
