The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas. Bridges Robert. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Bridges Robert
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Thy speech is earnest: yet even if thou speak truth,

       O welcome messenger of happy tidings,

       And though I hear aright, yet to believe

       Is hard: thou canst not know what words thou speakest

       Into what ears: they never heard before

       This sound but in old tales of happier times,

       In sighs of prayer and faint unhearted hope:

       Maybe they heard not rightly, speak again!

       Pr. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day.

       In. Yes, yes, again. Now let sweet Music blab 370

       Her secret and give o'er; here is a trumpet

       That mocks her method. Yet 'tis but the word.

       Maybe thy fire is not the fire I seek;

       Maybe though thou didst see it, now 'tis quenched,

       Or guarded out of reach: speak yet again

       And swear by heaven's truth is there fire or no;

       And if there be, what means may make it mine.

       Pr. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day:

       But not as thou dost seek it to be found.

       In. How seeking wrongly shall I seek aright? 380

       Pr. Thou prayest here to Zeus, and him thou callest

       Almighty, knowing he could grant thy prayer:

       That if 'twere but his will, the journeying sun

       Might drop a spark into thine outstretched hand:

       That at his breath the splashing mountain brooks

       That fall from Orneæ, and cold Lernè's pool

       Would change their element, and their chill streams

       Bend in their burning banks a molten flood:

       That at his word so many messengers

       Would bring thee fire from heaven, that not a hearth 390

       In all thy land but straight would have a god

       To kneel and fan the flame: and yet to him,

       It is to him thou prayest.{15}

       In. Therefore to him.

       Pr. Is this thy wisdom, king, to sow thy seed

       Year after year in this unsprouting soil?

       Hast thou not proved and found the will of Zeus

       A barren rock for man with prayer to plough?

       In. His anger be averted! we judge not god

       Evil, because our wishes please him not.

       Oft our shortsighted prayers to heaven ascending 400

       Ask there our ruin, and are then denied

       In kindness above granting: were 't not so,

       Scarce could we pray for fear to pluck our doom

       Out of the merciful withholding hands.

       Pr. Why then provokest thou such great goodwill

       In long denial and kind silence shown?

       In. Fie, fie! Thou lackest piety: the god's denial

       Being nought but kindness, there is hope that he

       Will make that good which is not:—or if indeed

       Good be withheld in punishment, 'tis well 410

       Still to seek on and pray that god relent.

       Pr. O Sire of Argos, Zeus will not relent.

       In. Yet fire thou say'st is on the earth this day.

       Pr. Not of his knowledge nor his gift, O king.

       In. By kindness of what god then has man fire?

       Pr. I say but on the earth unknown to Zeus.

       In. How boastest thou to know, not of his knowledge?

       Pr. I boast not: he that knoweth not may boast.

       In. Thy daring words bewilder sense with sound.

       Pr. I thought to find thee ripe for daring deeds. 420

       In. And what the deed for which I prove unripe?

       Pr. To take of heaven's fire.

       In. And were I ripe,

       What should I dare, beseech you?

       Pr. The wrath of Zeus.

       In. Madman, pretending in one hand to hold

       The wrath of god and in the other fire.

       Pr. Thou meanest rather holding both in one.{16}

       In. Both impious art thou and incredible.

       Pr. Yet impious only till thou dost believe.

       In. And what believe? Ah, if I could believe!

       It was but now thou saidst that there was fire, 430

       And I was near believing; I believed:

       Now to believe were to be mad as thou.

       Chorus. He may be mad and yet say true—maybe

       The heat of prophecy like a strong wine

       Shameth his reason with exultant speech.

       Pr. Thou say'st I am mad, and of my sober words

       Hast called those impious which thou fearest true,

       Those which thou knowest good, incredible.

       Consider ere thou judge: be first assured

       All is not good for man that seems god's will. 440

       See, on thy farming skill, thy country toil

       Which bends to aid the willing fruits of earth,

       And would promote the seasonable year,

       The face of nature is not always kind:

       And if thou search the sum of visible being

       To find thy blessing featured, 'tis not there:

       Her best gifts cannot brim the golden cup

       Of expectation which thine eager arms

       Lift to her mouthèd horn—what then is this

       Whose wide capacity outbids the scale 450

       Of prodigal beauty, so that the seeing eye

       And hearing ear, retiring unamazed

       Within their quiet chambers, sit to feast

       With dear imagination, nor look forth

       As once they did upon the varying air?

       Whence is the fathering of this desire

       Which mocks at fated circumstance? nay though

       Obstruction lie as cumbrous as the mountains,

       Nor thy particular hap hath armed desire

       Against the brunt of evil—yet not for this 460

       Faints man's desire: it is the unquenchable

       Original cause, the immortal breath of being:{17}

       Nor is there any spirit on Earth astir,

       Nor 'neath the airy vault, nor yet beyond

       In any dweller in far-reaching space,

       Nobler or dearer than the spirit of man:

       That spirit which lives in each and will not die,