‘I drowse in the grass, to the crickets’ elfin strings, With boughs and the sun about, with bowl and book, At the flood-tide of my youth, in the pearl of springs, Cydippe’s hand in my hair.... Ah, horrible thrill! Once I was rash, once I was wrong. Quick, look, My heart! in thy tremor, over the herded hill, In clefts of the moss, in swirls of the sliding brook: Somewhere the Vengeance lurks to defile and kill! My arrow back to me somewhere hisses and sings, Aye, justly; aye, bitterly, justly. Steady, heart! there. See, I laugh as I lie: on the brink of the jar yet clings Sweet foam; and I kiss Cydippe’s hand thro’ my hair.’ Again, with swift uneasy gesturing Turned Ægeus, chiding, and protested ere The whipped-up courage of that roundel’s close: ‘Cease, Theron! this is but an ominous song, A song of retribution.’ For he thought: ‘So retribution dogs my bruisèd age; Still, still Medea’s soft and deadly name Stings all the leafy splendor of my life, And daunts the morrow’s bud. And if there be A reckoning I must pay for follies past, Must it be--O not that, not now, not here!’ And drawing to his height, he cried: ‘The sail? Comes the sail from the south?’ They chorused ‘Naught Save argent flutterings of the shoreward gull.’ And Ægeus, craving solace, urged once more: ‘Rhodalus! sing thou what shall heal my soul, In numbers honey-clear.’ Now Rhodalus The poet, too, was loyal sentinel; A fiery patriot, wont to domineer The moods of Athens; very potent he, And flexile-throated as the nightingale. With all his fingers knit about his knee, And head against a hoary pillar raised, Dream-locked, upon the lowest sprayey ledge, Riddling the unintelligible space,-- Void thrones, and filmy wakes of fugitives, And interstellar agonies of midnight; To him the king’s voice throbbed a second time: ‘Rhodalus! sing thou what shall heal my soul.’ Who, grave with poesy’s most candid mien, Answered the summons softly: ‘Sire, I cannot. The music of my brothers is amiss, So mine would be. Our strings are jangled, wrested From their discreet and silvern vassalage, Snapped quite with languishment for Theseus’ sake. I cannot sing. But O you holy stars! Stretching to us your tendrils of high glory; Tacit compellers of our wayward spirits; You domèd guardians of this tear-bound earth, You rich-wrought visions, charioted thousands Hale rank on rank, thro’ warless cities riding! Young semispheric moon, O burning Seven, Hesper and Phosphor! blue hour-measuring orbs That elsewhere look on Theseus! Speed his pinnace, Bide thro’ the watches with us; shine; exhale not!’ And the dense quiet bound them.