Medea Mater^* 1845

Beautiful dreamers! Oh! sleep on, sleep on!

There is no sound or stir on earth or sky,

And blessed influences from on high

Descend like dew. Thou Bay Saronian,

Dimly afar, with moonlight overstrewn,

I see thee now. Almost I am at peace:

All misery and anguish seem to cease,

Beneath this holy time’s dominion.

Smiles! aye, and lute-voiced laughter. In your sleep,

Beloved sons, what glowing phantasies

Are thronging now around you? Do your eyes

Feast, in imagination, on the sweep

Of those great hills, where gods their vigils keep?

Or, haply, on fair rallies, which the hours

Bless with perennial, incense breathing flowers;

Such vales as bloom beneath the Olympian steep.

It was a day to be remember’d over,

The day that saw us floating down the stream

Of ancient Peneus. With the morn’s first beam,

And where, with scarce perceptible endeavour,

Solemn and slow, the sacred waters sever

Mount Phaestus from the hills of Thessaly;

We launch’d our bark. There were none others by,

Save those beloved ones who left me never.

O the glad freshness of that summer dawn!

The thrilling song of birds, the rich perfume

Of thousand, thousand flowers, the dim seen bloom

Of wild Pangaean roses, thickly strewn

O’er hill and dell, green glade and glossy lawn,

And, over all, the blue immensity,

The kindling east, the starlit western sky,

Day, as a god, advancing slowly on!

Elysium of earth! the awed content,

That over all my happy soul had grown.

Rose not from thy magnificence alone;

But there was one—one who beside me bent

With murmur’d words, of love and worship blent,

And therefore was I happy. Human love

A magic mightier than my own had wove,

A spell that silenced all presentiment.

Thus, silent with deep joy, through Tempe’s vale

We drifted on. But now the dreamy calm

Of gorgeous noon was past, and grateful balm

Refresh’d the air, and farm’d the drooping sail.

So evening shadows found us. Silvery pale,

The moon arose o’er Pelion, and the sun

Behind Olympus went serenely down,

Whose awful shadow wrapt us as a veil.

* * *

Would I were mortal! Men are born and die:

And with them dies the memory of their woe;

The wearied spirit unrepining goes

To rest, to renovation. Misery

I mine for ever. As the stars on high,

That change not, grow not dim, so I must reign,

A fixed despair—immortal in my pain,

Fill’d with one thought, a thought of joys gone by!

* * *

By the deep love with which I honour’d thee,

By the wild worship, and surrendering

Of my whole being, all that I could bring,

And offer’d thee with rapt humility:

By the old days which weeping memory

Still holds enclasped, a hoard of treasured pain,

By all that has been, may not be again—

Bitter, most bitter, shall thy nuptials be!

And these—these are thy children—they must die!

Let none dare question me—let no soft wind

Whisper me aught! I would not—would not find

Weak pleadings in the mother-thoughts that ply

So fondly at my heartstrings. Thou, oh sky!

Look not so pitifully. ———

All is past:

I am alone. They were too bright to last,

Those glorious dreams of fond humanity!

So passes from me earth: and I return

To my Olympian home. Daughter of gods,

Must I re-enter those serene abodes

Reluctant and regretting? Must I mourn

At passing once again the shadowy bourne?

Aye! with a heart all desolate and cold,

Medea fallen comes. Immortals, hold

Your looks of pity, spare your frozen scorn!

Farewell, bright land wherein I loved to dwell!

Thou blue Tropontid lake—thy cloud-veiled dome,

Strobilus hoar—and thou, my Grecian home,

Land of the ilex and the asphodel!

And oh! far more than these—thou rapturous swell

Of human fondness—mother-love, that grew

The holier for its sorrows—life, that knew

Such weeping joy and pain—Farewell! Farewell!

May 1845