Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.

The Masque of Pandora

VIII. In the Garden

The storm is past, but it hath left behind it

Ruin and desolation. All the walks

Are strewn with shattered boughs; the birds are silent;

The flowers, downtrodden by the wind, lie dead;

The swollen rivulet sobs with secret pain;

The melancholy reeds whisper together

As if some dreadful deed had been committed

They dare not name, and all the air is heavy

With an unspoken sorrow! Premonitions,

Foreshadowings of some terrible disaster

Oppress my heart. Ye Gods, avert the omen!

O Epimetheus, I no longer dare

To lift mine eyes to thine, nor hear thy voice,

Being no longer worthy of thy love.

What hast thou done?

Forgive me not, but kill me.

What hast thou done?

I pray for death, not pardon.

What hast thou done?

I dare not speak of it.

Thy pallor and thy silence terrify me!

I have brought wrath and ruin on thy house!

My heart hath braved the oracle that guarded

The fatal secret from us, and my hand

Lifted the lid of the mysterious chest!

Then all is lost! I am indeed undone.

I pray for punishment, and not for pardon.

Mine is the fault, not thine. On me shall fall

The vengeance of the Gods, for I betrayed

Their secret when, in evil hour, I said

It was a secret; when, in evil hour,

I left thee here alone to this temptation.

Why did I leave thee?

Why didst thou return?

Eternal absence would have been to me

The greatest punishment. To be left alone

And face to face with my own crime, had been

Just retribution. Upon me, ye Gods,

Let all your vengeance fall!

On thee and me.

I do not love thee less for what is done,

And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness

Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth

My love will have a sense of pity in it,

Making it less a worship than before.

Pity me not; pity is degradation.

Love me and kill me.

Beautiful Pandora!

Thou art a Goddess still!

I am a woman;

And the insurgent demon in my nature,

That made me brave the oracle, revolts

At pity and compassion. Let me die;

What else remains for me?

Youth, hope, and love:

To build a new life on a ruined life,

To make the future fairer than the past,

And make the past appear a troubled dream.

Even now in passing through the garden walks

Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest

Ruined and full of rain; and over me

Beheld the uncomplaining birds already

Busy in building a new habitation.

Auspicious omen!

May the Eumenides

Put out their torches and behold us not,

And fling away their whips of scorpions

And touch us not.

Me let them punish.

Only through punishment of our evil deeds,

Only through suffering, are we reconciled

To the immortal Gods and to ourselves.

Never shall souls like these

Escape the Eumenides,

The daughters dark of Acheron and Night!

Unquenched our torches glare,

Our scourges in the air

Send forth prophetic sounds before they smite.

Never by lapse of time

The soul defaced by crime

Into its former self returns again;

For every guilty deed

Holds in itself the seed

Of retribution and undying pain.

Never shall be the loss

Restored, till Helios

Hath purified them with his heavenly fires;

Then what was lost is won,

And the new life begun,

Kindled with nobler passions and desires.