Bringing me of my boy the annual news.
I dare not wish it; but, at least, to hear
That my son still survives, in health, in bloom;
To hear that still he loves, still longs for, me,
Yet, with a light uncareworn spirit, turns
Quick from distressful thought, and floats in joy—
Thus much from Arcas, my old servant true,
Who sav’d him from these murderous halls a babe,
And since has fondly watch’d him night and day
Save for this annual charge, I hope to hear.
If this be all, I know not; but I know,
These many years I live for this alone. Merope goes in.
Strophe 1
Much is there which the Sea
Conceals from man, who cannot plumb its depths.
Air to his unwing’d form denies a way,
And keeps its liquid solitudes unscal’d.
Even Earth, whereon he treads,
So feeble is his march, so slow,
Holds countless tracts untrod.
Antistrophe 1
But more than all unplumb’d,
Unscaled, untrodden, is the heart of Man.
More than all secrets hid, the way it keeps.
Nor any of our organs so obtuse,
Inaccurate, and frail,
As those with which we try to test
Feelings and motives there.
Strophe 2
Yea, and not only have we not explor’d
That wide and various world, the heart of others,
But even our own heart, that narrow world
Bounded in our own breast, we hardly know,
Of our own actions dimly trace the causes.
Whether a natural obscureness, hiding
That region in perpetual cloud,
Or our own want of effort, be the bar.
Antistrophe 2
Therefore—while acts are from their motives judged,
And to one act many most unlike motives,
This pure, that guilty, may have each impell’d—
Power fails us to try clearly if that cause
Assign’d us by the actor be the true one:
Power fails the man himself to fix distinctly
The cause which drew him to his deed,
And stamp himself, thereafter, bad or good.
Strophe 3
The most are bad
, wise men have said
Let the best rule
, they say again.
The best, then, to dominion hath the right.
Rights unconceded and denied,
Surely, if rights, may be by force asserted—
May be, nay should, if for the general weal.
The best, then, to the throne may carve his way,
And hew opposers down,
Free from all guilt of lawlessness,
Or selfish lust of personal power:
Bent only to serve Virtue,
Bent to diminish wrong.
Antistrophe 3
And truly, in this ill-rul’d world,
Well sometimes may the good desire
To give to Virtue her dominion due.
Well may he long to interrupt
The reign of Folly, usurpation ever,
Though fenc’d by sanction of a thousand years.
Well thirst to drag the wrongful ruler down;
Well purpose to pen back
Into the narrow path of right,
The ignorant, headlong multitude,
Who blindly follow ever,
Blind leaders, to their bane.
Strophe 4
But who can say, without a fear:
That best, who ought to rule, am I;
The mob, who ought to obey, are these;
I the one righteous, they the many bad?
—
Who, without check of conscience, can aver
That he to power makes way by arms,
Sheds blood, imprisons, banishes, attaints,
Commits all deeds the guilty oftenest do,
Without a single guilty thought,
Arm’d for right only, and the general good?
Antistrophe 4
Therefore, with censure unallay’d,
Therefore, with unexcepting ban,
Zeus and pure-thoughted Justice brand
Imperious self-asserting Violence.
Sternly condemn the too bold man, who dares
Elect himself Heaven’s destin’d arm.
And, knowing well man’s inmost heart infirm,
However noble the committer be,
His grounds however specious shown,
Turn with averted eyes from deeds of blood.
Epode
Thus, though a woman, I was school’d
By those whom I revere.
Whether I learnt their lessons well,
Or, having learnt them, well apply
To what hath in this house befall’n,
If in the event be any proof,
The event will quickly show. Aepytus comes in.
Maidens, assure me if they told me true
Who told me that the royal house was here.
O King, all hail! I come with weighty news:
Most likely, grateful; but, in all case, sure.
Accept them in one word, for good or bad:
Aepytus, the Messenian prince, is dead!
Dead!—and when died he? where? and by what hand?
And who art thou, who bringest me such news?
He perish’d in Arcadia, where he liv’d
With Cypselus; and two days since he died.
One of the train of Cypselus am I.
That will I do, and to this end I came.
For, being of like age, of birth not mean,
The son of an Arcadian noble, I
Was chosen his companion from a boy;
And on the hunting-rambles which his heart,
Unquiet, drove him ever to pursue
Through all the lordships of the Arcadian dales,
From chief to chief, I wander’d at his side,
The captain of his squires, and his guard.
On such a hunting-journey, three morns since,
With beaters, hounds, and huntsmen, he and I
Set forth from Tegea, the royal town.
The prince at start seem’d sad, but his regard
Clear’d with blithe travel and the morning air.
We rode from Tegea, through the woods of oaks,
Past Arnê spring, where Rhea gave the babe
Poseidon to the shepherd-boys to hide
From Saturn’s search among the new-yean’d lambs,
To Mantineia, with its unbak’d walls;
Thence, by the Sea-God’s Sanctuary and the tomb
Whither from wintry Maenalus were brought
The bones of Arcas, whence our race is nam’d,
On, to the marshy Orchomenian plain,
And the Stone Coffins;—then, by Caphyae Cliffs,
To Pheneos with its craggy citadel.
There, with the chief of that hill-town, we lodg’d
One night;
