Nourishing the heart like choral harmonies.

O this was then my joy, that I could give

A soul not saved from wretched female fright,
Or anarchy of self-abandoned will,

But one which had achieved deliverance,

And wrought with shaping hands among the stuff

Which fate presented. Had I shrunk from Death?
Might I not therefore unashamed accept-

In a calm wonder of unfaltering joy-
Life, the fair gift he laid before my feet?
Somewhat a partner of his deed I seemed;
His equal? Nay, yet upright at his side
Scarce lower by a head and helmet's height,
Touching my Perseus' shoulder.

He has wrought

Great deeds. Athena loves to honour him;

And I have borne him sons. Look, yonder goes

Lifting the bow, Eleios, the last-born.

EURYDICE.

"Now must this waste of vain desire have end:
Fetter these thoughts which traverse to and fro
The road which has no issue! We are judged.
O wherefore could I not uphold his heart?
Why claimed I not some partnership with him
In the strict test, urging my right of wife?
How have I let him fall? I, knowing thee
My Orpheus, bounteous giver of rich gifts,
Not all inured in practice of the will,
Worthier than I, yet weaker to sustain

An inner certitude against the blank

And silence of the senses; so no more

My heart helps thine, and henceforth there remains

No gift to thee from me, who would give all,

Only the memory of me growing faint

Until I seem a thing incredible,

Some high, sweet dream, which was not, nor could

be.

Ay, and in idle fields of asphodel

Must it not be that I shall fade indeed,

No memory of me, but myself; these hands
Ceasing from mastery and use, my thoughts
Losing distinction in the vague, sweet air,
The heart's swift pulses slackening to the sob

Of the forgetful river, with no deed

Pre-eminent to dare and to achieve,

No joy for climbing to, no clear resolve

From which the soul swerves never, no ill thing
To rid the world of, till I am no more
Eurydice, and shouldst thou at thy time
Descend, and hope to find a helpmate here,
I were grown slavish, like the girls men buy
Soft-bodied, foolish-faced, luxurious-eyed,

And meet to be another thing than wife.

Would that it had been thus: when the

And laughterless Aidoneus lifted up

song ceased

The face, and turned his grave persistent eyes

Upon the singer, I had forward stepped

And spoken-King! he has wrought well, nor

failed,

Who ever heard divine large song like this,

Keener than sunbeam, wider than the air,

And shapely as the mould of faultless fruit?
And now his heart upon the gale of song

Soars with wide wing, and he is strong for flight,
Not strong for treading with the careful foot:
Grant me the naked trial of the will

Divested of all colour, scents and song:

The deed concerns the wife; I claim my share.'

O then because Persephone was by

With shadowed eyes when Orpheus sang of flowers,
He would have yielded. And I stepping forth
From the clear radiance of the singer's heights,
Made calm through vision of his wider truth,
And strengthened by deep beauty to hold fast
The presences of the invisible things,

Had led the way. I know how in that mood
He leans on me as babe on mother's breast,
Nor could he choose but let his foot descend

Where mine left lightest pressure; so are passed
The brute three-visaged, and the flowerless ways,
Nor have I turned my head; and now behold
The grayness of remote terrestrial light,
And I step swifter. Does he follow still?
O surely since his will embraces mine
Closer than clinging hand can clasp a hand :
No need to turn and dull with visible proof
The certitude that soul relies on soul!

So speed we to the day; and now we touch
Warm grass, and drink the Sun. Oh Earth, O Sun
Not you I need, but Orpheus' breast, and weep

The gladdest tears that ever woman shed,
And may be weak awhile, and need to know

The sustenance and comfort of his arms.

Self-foolery of dreams; come bitter truth.

Yet he has sung at least a perfect song
While the Gods heard him, and I stood beside
O not applauding, but at last content,