THE SUPPLIANT ZEUS. Ζεὺς ἱκέτης. Ζεὺς τὰ πάντα, χὦτι τῶνδ ̓ ὑπέρτερον. O, opulent man of the earth! I am dust trodden under your feet; Though the thunder is mine, unto thee I am but a whisper of speech, Is it because unto man I seem inaccessibly high, Because I am deemed to dwell on ineffable summit of sky, Unchangeably fixed in the heavens, that move not for bitterest moan, With the wants and the wailings below, that stir not the calm of the throne? In that almighty I am, and because I have not a flaw, In that my wisdom is sure, and for ever and ever my law, Am I thus made a monstrous dread, till the doubting heart closes its door? Shall man learn that God's Wisdom is great, and not know that His If Suppliant Love be refused, if man crush me out of his soul, If Love be frustrate at last, and no soul and no star and no flower If the flax be withdrawn from the air, by no oil may it kindle again, As my life with my love outwells, for the law of my heart it is so, Are there souls with wistful eyes by the light of my heart beguiled? Are there spirits that long to be shrined as a mother embosoms her child? Are there arms that ache for great deeds, and lungs that pant to be drawn Into expansion divine, as a sky that is opened by dawn?— Then the word is sure: If I seem to sleep, the first cry will awake, ye Hast thou feared, O soul sorely hid, that thee I would cease to feed, And avenues into peace from the burning middle of strife? Lo! the worm finds in earth his god, and the tiger exults in his maw; Thou hast a life more large wherein I may nearer draw; And if my girdle of love I know to have never an end, Then for thee I can wait the day when faith comes that can comprehend. My body is given for you; ye have grown from sap of my veins, Ye are fortressed in self that were babe in the hollow palm of my hand; To your pride ye resort for strength, and love's entry are free to withstand. The mighty takes meat of his choice, but his soul is forlorn at length If ye have not me, there is none, if me ye find not to love, Ye are nobly born, your sire is Wisdom, and Love is his wife, Fret and confusion and sorrow, struggle and anger and fight, Yea, the form of man's life is as seas that rave in the darkness of night; Fear and deadness and doubt in the outermost borders from me, Yet his birthright's place is my heart, and his glory to come back free. Humbled for stress of love, and emptied of self and repute, In the form of a servitor made, who in tenderest yearnings is mute, My heart's inmost throbbings are hid in the roll of the outer spheres, So long as the lord of my heart for its music hath no ears. Love with what giving ye can, 'tis me ye rejoice unseen, For messengers mine tell me all, from the spring leaf that leaps into green, To the little child heart that was lured by your smile from its loneliness, And the sweet soft silence you made when a word would have brought distress. Glowing glory of life will appear, and the bridal of heaven will shine, When the thread of communion tells that your hearts are at one with mine. As your eyes of their cloud grow free, when your soul shall open its door, Yea, you shall know me then as you could not know before; Though you find not my place without, within will I vanquish your hate, For hatred ceases by love, and I stand in the portal and wait. Grow with your growth of earth, when the limbs are old and oppressed, The weariest father shall find in the Father of youth his rest. BEGINNING LIFE: BY AN OLD CONTRIBUTOR. UPON a balcony, in the moonlight, two men stood talking, one summer's night. "To me," said one, "all this wonderful appearance of things which you call the real, is an appearance only. Behind or within it all, moving it, making its life, lies what we can but call the spiritual." 66 'Yet," said the other, "there are things, and not only things, but persons, that impress one as being merely physical. Surely you have felt that, Hartley, in your varied life. There are beings who may indeed be angels or demons clothed in flesh; but are there not also beings who seem but shadows on the wall-mere flesh and blood, and no more ?" "Yes," said Hartley, and was silent for a moment. Then he spoke, quickly," But," said he, "as in looking on a mass of stone I perceive a bulky, though inert appearance, which seems to me to be presented by an undeveloped and hardly conscious spiritual existence-yet still an existence; so I conceive it possible that in these creatures of flesh and blood of whom you speak the animating spirit may be so slightly developed as to be hardly conscious. But I am quite unable to imagine any material existence that is what you call purely physical." He spoke with an earnestness in his voice which his friend felt to be scarcely in keeping with the dreamy metaphysics they had drifted into. He was about to end the conversation by moving back into the room, when he perceived that in the window, close beside her husband, stood Hartley's wife. "I wonder so much," she said, in a voice musical as rippling waters, "I wonder so much what all these phrases of yours mean. Tell me what is purely physical,' she asked, leaning towards Hartley and gazing up into his face. Hartley looked back into the marvellous blue eyes that were fixed inquiringly upon his. He looked and looked as though some fascination held him, while his friend wondered at the strange abstraction that seemed to have come upon him, and was about to break the silence by making some light answer himself, when it was broken by Hartley: "You are, my child." The words seemed to have come from him involuntarily, or to represent a thought scarcely or but newly realised; for he started, and with a sudden action, as if to distract attention from his own speech, he gently pushed his wife back into the room, and they mingled at once with others who were talking and laughing gaily within. But his friend-startled, amazed, shocked at the revelation which had come to him-lingered alone awhile in the moonlight. This, then, was the reason of Hartley's exaggerated earnestness of manner. This, possibly, accounted for a certain change in Hartley of late-an abstracted moodiness, which had troubled his friend. He turned his back upon the glorious moonlit scene without, and looked into the lighted room. Hartley was talking in the midst of a group of gentlemen, with what seemed to the observant friend a gaiety of manner that was hardly natural, or in accordance with his recent mood. He noticed that ever and anon Hartley would turn and look at his wife. She was a lovely woman, with fair smooth forehead, and eyes of blue shaded by dark lashes; a mouth that could smile deliciously, an aureole of burnished gold hair, and that peculiar complexion which is the natural accompaniment of true golden hair. Most people considered Elena Hartley a positively glorious woman; only a few were over-critical enough to complain of a certain want of warmth in the lovely blue eyes. Does not Shelley somewhere speak of the depths beyond depths which are the peculiar characteristic of the Englishwoman's eyes? Just that characteristic Elena's eyes lacked; or, at least, so some people fancied. "He is right," thought Hartley's friend, as he lingered on the balcony, looking into the bright room; "he is right, though his words went terribly far. There is no mystery in that face; its loveliness is all apparent. I can well believe that nothing is hidden for her husband. I never believed she possessed Browning's two soulsides: one to face the world withone to show the man whom truly loves she. But now Hartley goes further. Will she make him a materialist, this seeming angel? Is it to be her task to convince him that animate matter may exist unvitalised by spirit?" "Are you still out in the moonlight, Mr. Egerton ?" said Elena, approaching the window; "Will you not sing to us ?" "Not to-night," he answered, advancing from his retreat; "I have no heart to sing. I-I am tired. Good night!" And looking into the fair face with wondering eyes, he passed her by and quietly left the room. Escaping from the house, he breathed more easily. "Poor Hartley!" he exclaimed; "what a pity he loves her so entirely as he does!" And he hurried home, to relieve himself by turning his thoughts upon other matters. But to Hartley himself his own words had been a revelation also. He realised more bitterly a truth which had been thrusting itself continually in his way for a long while. He called his wife "My child," and aptly so. Elena was no child in intellect. She was equal, if not superior, to the average woman in brain power, and her mind had been developed by intelligent education. But that mind was unstimulated by aspiration or inspiration. He had long felt that, by his side, Elena was but a child in soul. And now, as he penetrated yet further into her nature, he almost began in his doubt to wonder whether a soul existed at all within that most exquisitely wrought casket, her physical frame. Had the Creator forgotten (after forming so finished a case) to place the jewel within? Not so, surely! Hartley cherished the idea that the voluptuous material development indicated an undeveloped spiritual state. The spirit within had not by its growth preyed upon the casket, but had |