Poetry

ill,
Nurse no extravagant hope;
Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair! A long pause. At the end of it the notes of a harp below are again heard, and Callicles sings:⁠—

Far, far from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
And by the sea, and in the brakes.
The grass is cool, the sea-side air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
As virginal and sweet as ours.
And there, they say, two bright and aged snakes,
Who once were Cadmus and Harmonia,
Bask in the glens or on the warm seashore,
In breathless quiet, after all their ills.
Nor do they see their country, nor the place
Where the Sphinx lived among the frowning hills,
Nor the unhappy palace of their race,
Nor Thebes, nor the Ismenus, any more.

There those two live, far in the Illyrian brakes.
They had stay’d long enough to see,
In Thebes, the billow of calamity
Over their own dear children roll’d,
Curse upon curse, pang upon pang,
For years, they sitting helpless in their home,
A grey old man and woman; yet of old
The Gods had to their marriage come,
And at the banquet all the Muses sang.

Therefore they did not end their days
In sight of blood; but were rapt, far away,
To where the west wind plays,
And murmurs of the Adriatic come
To those untrodden mountain lawns; and there
Placed safely in changed forms, the Pair
Wholly forget their first sad life, and home,
And all that Theban woe, and stray
For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.

Empedocles

That was my harp-player again!⁠—where is he?
Down by the stream?

Pausanias Yes, Master, in the wood. Empedocles

He ever loved the Theban story well!
But the day wears. Go now, Pausanias,
For I must be alone. Leave me one mule;
Take down with thee the rest to Catana.
And for young Callicles, thank him from me;
Tell him, I never fail’d to love his lyre:
But he must follow me no more to-night.

Pausanias Thou wilt return to-morrow to the city? Empedocles

Either to-morrow or some other day,
In the sure revolutions of the world,
Good friend, I shall revisit Catana.
I have seen many cities in my time,
Till mine eyes ache with the long spectacle,
And I shall doubtless see them all again;
Thou know’st me for a wanderer from of old.
Meanwhile, stay me not now. Farewell, Pausanias! He departs on his way up the mountain.

Pausanias

Alone.

I dare not urge him further; he must go.
But he is strangely wrought!⁠—I will speed back
And bring Peisianax to him from the city;
His counsel could once soothe him. But, Apollo!
How his brow lighten’d as the music rose!
Callicles must wait here, and play to him;
I saw him through the chestnuts far below,
Just since, down at the stream.⁠—Ho! Callicles! He descends, calling.

Act II

Evening. The Summit of Etna.

Empedocles	Alone!⁠— On this charr’d, blacken’d, melancholy waste, Crown’d by the awful peak, Etna’s great mouth, Round which the sullen vapour rolls⁠—alone! Pausanias is far hence, and that is well, For I must henceforth speak no more with man. He has his lesson too, and that debt’s paid; And the good, learned, friendly, quiet man, May bravelier front his life, and in himself Find henceforth energy and heart; but I, The weary man, the banish’d citizen⁠— Whose banishment is not his greatest ill, Whose weariness no energy can reach, And for whose hurt courage is not the cure⁠— What should I do with life and living more? No, thou art come too late, Empedocles! And the world hath the day, and must break thee, Not thou the world. With men thou canst not live, Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine; And being lonely thou art miserable, For something has impair’d thy spirit’s strength, And dried its self-sufficing fount of joy. Thou canst not live with men nor with thyself⁠— O sage! O sage!⁠—Take then the one way left; And turn thee to the elements, thy friends, Thy well-tried friends, thy willing ministers, And say:⁠—Ye servants, hear Empedocles, Who asks this final service at your hands! Before the sophist brood hath overlaid The last spark of man’s consciousness with words⁠— Ere quite the being of man, ere quite the world Be disarray’d of their divinity⁠— Before the soul lose all her solemn joys, And awe be dead, and hope impossible, And the soul’s deep eternal night come on⁠— Receive me, hide me, quench me, take me home!
	He advances to the edge of the crater. Smoke and fire break forth with a loud noise, and Callicles is heard below singing:⁠—
	The lyre’s voice is lovely everywhere! In the court of Gods, in the city of men, And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain glen, In the still mountain air. Only to Typho it sounds hatefully! To Typho only, the rebel o’erthrown, Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stone, To imbed them in the sea. Wherefore dost thou groan so loud? Wherefore do thy nostrils flash, Through the dark night, suddenly, Typho, such red jets of flame?⁠— Is thy tortur’d heart still proud? Is thy fire-scath’d arm still rash? Still alert thy stone-crush’d frame? Doth thy fierce soul still deplore Thine ancient rout by the Cilician hills, And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore?18 Do thy bloodshot eyes still weep The fight that crown’d thy ills, Thy last defeat in this Sicilian sea? Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair, Where erst the strong sea-currents suck’d thee down, Never to cease to writhe, and try to sleep, Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair? That thy groans, like thunder deep, Begin to roll, and almost drown The sweet notes, whose lulling spell Gods and the race of mortals love so well, When through thy caves thou hearest music swell? But an awful pleasure bland Spreading o’er the Thunderer’s face, When the sound climbs near his seat, The Olympian council sees; As he lets his lax right hand, Which the lightnings doth embrace, Sink upon his mighty knees. And the eagle, at the beck Of the appeasing gracious harmony, Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feather’d neck, Nestling nearer to Jove’s feet; While o’er his sovereign eye The curtains of the blue films slowly meet, And the white Olympus peaks Rosily brighten, and the sooth’d Gods smile At one another from their golden chairs, And no one round the charmèd circle speaks. Only the loved Hebe bears The cup about, whose draughts beguile Pain and care, with a dark store Of fresh-pull’d violets wreath’d and nodding o’er; And her flush’d feet glow