Complete Poems (23 page)

Those voices are the sweeter which have fallen

               forever silent, mournfully

resounding only in the heart that sorrows.

In dreams the melancholic voices come,

               timorous and humble,

and bring before our feeble memory

the precious dead, whom the cold cold earth

               conceals; for whom the mirthful

daybreak never shines, nor springtimes blossom.

Melodious voices sigh; and in the soul

               our life’s first poetry

sounds—like music, in the night, that’s far away.

The flowers that are loveliest, blossom in summer.

And of all the flowers in the field it seems

the most beautiful is youth. And yet it wilts

quickly, and once it goes is not reborn;

the lilacs sprinkle it with tears of dew.

The flowers that are loveliest, blossom in summer.

But the eyes that look at them are not the same.

And other hands, on other bosoms, place them.

The same months come, except they seem like strangers.

The faces have changed, and do not recognize them.

The flowers that are loveliest, blossom in summer.

But they do not always tarry with our joy.

Some gladden us, others make us bitter.

They sprout upon the tombs whereon we weep,

even as they tint our gladsome fields.

Summer has come back, and all the fields are blooming.

But from the window it is hard to reach.

And the pane grows ever smaller, disappears.

The exhausted eye grows clouded, then it shuts.

Our weary legs are heavy, do not support us.

Not all the fields will bloom for us this year.

The lilies of forgotten August crown us,

nimbly the bygone years return,

beloved shadows beckon to us sweetly

and send our beggar heart sweetly to sleep.

The happy sully Nature.

The earth’s a realm of grief.

The dawn weeps tears of unknown woe.

The orphaned evenings, pallid, grieve.

And the soul that is elect sings mournfully.

In breezes I hear sighing.

In violets I see blame.

I feel the rose’s painful life;

the meadows filled with cryptic woe.

And in the woodland thick a sobbing sounds.

Mankind lauds the happy.

And poets false extol them.

But Nature’s gates are closed to those

who, heartless and indifferent, laugh,

laugh: strangers in a miserable land.

The Sphinx has fallen on him

with teeth and claws unsheathed

and with all her nature’s savagery.

At her first onslaught Oedipus fell down,

terrified, at first, by her appearance—

until now he’d never have imagined

a countenance like this, such speech as this.

But though the monster ramps with both her feet

upon the breast of Oedipus,

he recovered swiftly—nor does he in the least

fear her now, since he has

the answer ready and will vanquish her.

And yet he takes no pleasure in this victory.

His eye, with melancholy filled,

does not behold the Sphinx, but sees beyond

the narrow road that goes to Thebes

and will come to its conclusion at Colonus.

And in his soul there is a clear foreboding

that there the Sphinx will speak to him again

with much more difficult and with far greater

riddles for which there isn’t any answer.

The footfalls of the first passerby;

the first peddler’s lively shouting;

the first windows opening,

the first door—these are the song

of the streets in the morning.

The steps of the last passerby;

the last of the peddlers shouting;

the doors and windows shutting—

are the elegiac sound

of the streets in the evening.

               In the stillness of an autumn night,

               I sit near an open window,

               for entire hours, in a perfect,

               voluptuous tranquility.

               The gentle rainfall of the leaves descends.

               The keening of the perishable world

               resounds within my perishable nature,

but is a dulcet keening, rising like a prayer.

               My window opens up an unknown

               world. A fount of fragrant memories,

               unutterable, appears before me.

               Against my window wings

are beating—chill autumnal exhalations

               approach me and encircle me

               and in their holy tongue they speak to me.

               I feel vague and wide-embracing

               hopes; and in the hallowed silence

of creation, my ears hear melodies,

               hear the crystalline, the mystic

               music of the chorus of the stars.

However much you speak of it, misfortune does not fade away.

But there are woes that will not rest at peace within the heart.

To emerge, and by their plaint to spend themselves, they yearn.

Antony was in love with me, and I in love with him.

And he gave his word to me that he’d not take another!

And yet he was so very poor, and he had a lofty pride.

So it was he up and went off in an ill-starred ship

in the hope of finding work, of acquiring a trade.

He wanted to become a sailor, and one day a captain,

and thereafter to be married with his heart at peace.

Ah, not a single year was spared, before my father fell

and broke his leg, and his right arm.

My mamma then fell sick. Whatever we still had,

a little bit of ancient copper, a little bit of silver,

some small bits of jewelry that my mother had been saving

were sold off for a pittance.

                         Our misfortune soon became

the talk of the entire village. In all of the great houses

they spread the news about, and from his mansion Stavros

would often come, both as a friend and as protector

into our home … and looked at me, and love was in his eyes.

My father was not working; mamma did not embroider.

I was working night and day and pouring out my eyesight

and still did not succeed in eking out their daily bread.

Stavros was a wealthy man and had a generous heart.

Simply—without swaggering, without giving himself airs—

and secretly, he gave to them that they might have to eat.

And my soul rejoiced for my poor parents—and wept for my poor self.

It did not tarry very long, the hapless day on which

he stood nearby me in the field, and took my hand

and stood there looking at me … I was trembling like a leaf

because I knew well what he wanted, and I loved him not …

The words were hesitating on my lips—until he said:

“Phroso, do you not—for their sake—condescend to have me?”

No, my heart intoned to me, still seeking Antony.

But a North Wind, tempestuous, had risen heavily

and they were saying that his boat was lost on unknown seas.

Ah, how was it that the harsh, empoisoned lie crept out! …

Ah, wretched me, how shall I live then, weeping night and day! …

My father had much talk with me, in order to persuade me.

But my good mother never said a single word to me,

but merely looked into my eyes, and grief and poverty

poured down from her. I lost whatever strength I had.

I could not bear it. I gave my hand to him. My heart

had been buried deep within the sea.

All the village maidens envied me my fortune

in marrying a wealthy man, a great aristocrat—

I, who was country maid, I who was so poor.

Never had the village seen a wedding that was grander

than ours was. Young and old alike gathered together

to clap their eyes upon the lucky bride of the great lord.

They strewed the road with lilacs and with roses.

Dancing and music were everywhere, and songs and groaning boards.

For me it was night. All were wearing black.

Four months only had passed since I had married him,

and one evening, when I was standing by the door

of my house, I saw in front of me the shade of Antony.

To me it seemed he was a dream, I trusted not my eyes,

until he said to me “My love, why are you sorrowing?

Our troubles now are ended, I have come to marry you.”

Bitterly, bitterly I welcomed him, and told him everything.

And I clasped his hands, as once before, in mine,

and kissed him as I had before, and wept upon his neck.

I told him that I loved no other man but him …

I told him they’d deceived me, that I believed

that in the tempest he had drowned … That only for the sake

of my mother, of my father had I wed … That with him

I would have gladly chosen troubles, poverty, and scorn

over all the wealth there is on earth, that another brought …

I told him that I loved him now as I first did, but now

my love’s an unquenched fire that burns me,

now I know that he will never, never, never

be mine, nor I be his … and I told him that,

if anything remained of our old love,

he must swear that he would never see me more while I yet lived …

And I said other things, said other things. Things I do not recall.

My head was burning up. My wits had fled from me.

Now everything is ended forevermore. My life’s gone black.

This world will have no joy for me, ever again.

Would that death would take me! … And yet how could I die—

I have a wound within my heart, but I am ever young.

The gods die not. What dies is the belief

               of the thankless mortal mob.

The gods are deathless. Silver clouds conceal

               them from our vision.

O sacred Thessaly, they love You still,

               their souls recall You still.

In the gods, as in us, memories bloom,

               their first love’s pulse.

When amorous daybreak kisses Thessaly,

               vividness of lives divine

passes through her atmosphere; and an airy shape

               sometimes darts across her hills.

Tacitus the emperor is ailing.

In his deep old age he was unable

to resist the ravages of war.

In his sickbed at the hateful camp

at miserable Tyana—so remote!—

he remembers his Campania, his beloved,

the garden, and the villa, and the morning

promenades—his life six months ago—

And calls down curses in his agony

on the Senate, on the spiteful Senate.

Nero is asleep inside his palace

calm, unconscious, and content—

blooming with the heartiness of flesh

and the lovely vigor of his youth.

But his Lares are uneasy.

The little hearth-gods are atremble,

and seek to hide their trifling bodies,

to diminish them, to make them disappear.

Because they heard a ghastly crash—

a Hellish crash, a fatal crash—

coming from the stairway, and straight off

the fearful Lares, their frail divinity

all fainted dead away,

divined, perceived, recognized

the dreadful footfalls of the Eumenides.

Like light in matter, like a diaphanous

gold is amber, which mankind holds so precious.—

When a ghastly power, furious,

envious of Phaëthon, from the crest

of the heavens cast him down headlong,

his sisters came, decked out in their weeds,

to Eridanus, to his watery tomb,

and day and night they mourned in misery.

And with them too all mortal men lamented

the vanity of reveries too proud.

O heartless fate, O hateful destiny,

Phaëthon has fallen from the clouds!

Let us live among our lowly hearths,

humble men, and be content with little;

let us cast out yearnings from our hearts,

let every motion heavenward desist.

They wept him ever, miserable maids,

Phaëthon’s sisters ever wept for him,

and in every one of Eridanus’s bends

their images, so pallid, were reflected.

With profound emotion the earth did take

the sacred teardrops of the seven maidens

and hoarded them. When the seventh day

came round, and when the eighth dawn glistened,

their many, many weepings were transformed

into an everlasting scintillation

and metamorphosed into gleaming amber.

O choicest stone! o goodly lamentation!

Noble lament, enviable lament,

filled with love and filled with luster,—

estimable sisters, who with tears of light

mourned the youth who on earth was loveliest.