IV. TO HERMES (582 lines)

(ll. 1-29) Muse, sing of Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia, lord
of Cyllene and Arcadia rich in flocks, the luck-bringing
messenger of the immortals whom Maia bare, the rich-tressed
nymph, when she was joined in love with Zeus, -- a shy goddess,
for she avoided the company of the blessed gods, and lived within
a deep, shady cave.  There the son of Cronos used to lie with the
rich-tressed nymph, unseen by deathless gods and mortal men, at
dead of night while sweet sleep should hold white-armed Hera
fast.  And when the purpose of great Zeus was fixed in heaven,
she was delivered and a notable thing was come to pass.  For then
she bare a son, of many shifts, blandly cunning, a robber, a
cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief
at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds
among the deathless gods.  Born with the dawning, at mid-day he
played on the lyre, and in the evening he stole the cattle of
far-shooting Apollo on the fourth day of the month; for on that
day queenly Maia bare him.  So soon as he had leaped from his
mother's heavenly womb, he lay not long waiting in his holy
cradle, but he sprang up and sought the oxen of Apollo.  But as
he stepped over the threshold of the high-roofed cave, he found a
tortoise there and gained endless delight.  For it was Hermes who
first made the tortoise a singer.  The creature fell in his way
at the courtyard gate, where it was feeding on the rich grass
before the dwelling, waddling along.  When be saw it, the luck-
bringing son of Zeus laughed and said:

(ll. 30-38) 'An omen of great luck for me so soon!  I do not
slight it.  Hail, comrade of the feast, lovely in shape, sounding
at the dance!  With joy I meet you!  Where got you that rich gaud
for covering, that spangled shell -- a tortoise living in the
mountains?  But I will take and carry you within: you shall help
me and I will do you no disgrace, though first of all you must
profit me.  It is better to be at home: harm may come out of
doors.  Living, you shall be a spell against mischievous
witchcraft (13); but if you die, then you shall make sweetest
song.

(ll. 39-61) Thus speaking, he took up the tortoise in both hands
and went back into the house carrying his charming toy.  Then he
cut off its limbs and scooped out the marrow of the mountain-
tortoise with a scoop of grey iron.  As a swift thought darts
through the heart of a man when thronging cares haunt him, or as
bright glances flash from the eye, so glorious Hermes planned
both thought and deed at once.  He cut stalks of reed to measure
and fixed them, fastening their ends across the back and through
the shell of the tortoise, and then stretched ox hide all over it
by his skill.  Also he put in the horns and fitted a cross-piece
upon the two of them, and stretched seven strings of sheep-gut.
But when he had made it he proved each string in turn with the
key, as he held the lovely thing.  At the touch of his hand it
sounded marvellously; and, as he tried it, the god sang sweet
random snatches, even as youths bandy taunts at festivals.  He
sang of Zeus the son of Cronos and neat-shod Maia, the converse
which they had before in the comradeship of love, telling all the
glorious tale of his own begetting.  He celebrated, too, the
handmaids of the nymph, and her bright home, and the tripods all
about the house, and the abundant cauldrons.

(ll. 62-67) But while he was singing of all these, his heart was
bent on other matters.  And he took the hollow lyre and laid it
in his sacred cradle, and sprang from the sweet-smelling hall to
a watch-place, pondering sheet trickery in his heart -- deeds
such as knavish folk pursue in the dark night-time; for he longed
to taste flesh.

(ll. 68-86) The Sun was going down beneath the earth towards
Ocean with his horses and chariot when Hermes came hurrying to
the shadowy mountains of Pieria, where the divine cattle of the
blessed gods had their steads and grazed the pleasant, unmown
meadows.  Of these the Son of Maia, the sharp-eyed slayer of
Argus then cut off from the herd fifty loud-lowing kine, and
drove them straggling-wise across a sandy place, turning their
hoof-prints aside.  Also, he bethought him of a crafty ruse and
reversed the marks of their hoofs, making the front behind and
the hind before, while he himself walked the other way (14).
Then he wove sandals with wicker-work by the sand of the sea,
wonderful things, unthought of, unimagined; for he mixed together
tamarisk and myrtle-twigs, fastening together an armful of their
fresh, young wood, and tied them, leaves and all securely under
his feet as light sandals.  The brushwood the glorious Slayer of
Argus plucked in Pieria as he was preparing for his journey,
making shift (15) as one making haste for a long journey.

(ll. 87-89) But an old man tilling his flowering vineyard saw him
as he was hurrying down the plain through grassy Onchestus.  So
the Son of Maia began and said to him:

(ll. 90-93) 'Old man, digging about your vines with bowed
shoulders, surely you shall have much wine when all these bear
fruit, if you obey me and strictly remember not to have seen what
you have seen, and not to have heard what you have heard, and to
keep silent when nothing of your own is harmed.'

(ll. 94-114) When he had said this much, he hurried the strong
cattle on together: through many shadowy mountains and echoing
gorges and flowery plains glorious Hermes drove them.  And now
the divine night, his dark ally, was mostly passed, and dawn that
sets folk to work was quickly coming on, while bright Selene,
daughter of the lord Pallas, Megamedes' son, had just climbed her
watch-post, when the strong Son of Zeus drove the wide-browed
cattle of Phoebus Apollo to the river Alpheus.  And they came
unwearied to the high-roofed byres and the drinking-troughs that
were before the noble meadow.  Then, after he had well-fed the
loud-bellowing cattle with fodder and driven them into the byre,
close-packed and chewing lotus and began to seek the art of fire.

He chose a stout laurel branch and trimmed it with the knife....
((LACUNA)) (16)
....held firmly in his hand: and the hot smoke rose up.  For it
was Hermes who first invented fire-sticks and fire.  Next he took
many dried sticks and piled them thick and plenty in a sunken
trench: and flame began to glow, spreading afar the blast of
fierce-burning fire.

(ll. 115-137) And while the strength of glorious Hephaestus was
beginning to kindle the fire, he dragged out two lowing, horned
cows close to the fire; for great strength was with him.  He
threw them both panting upon their backs on the ground, and
rolled them on their sides, bending their necks over (17), and
pierced their vital chord.  Then he went on from task to task:
first he cut up the rich, fatted meat, and pierced it with wooden
spits, and roasted flesh and the honourable chine and the paunch
full of dark blood all together.  He laid them there upon the
ground, and spread out the hides on a rugged rock: and so they
are still there many ages afterwards, a long, long time after all
this, and are continually (18).  Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged
the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a smooth, flat
stone, and divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot,
making each portion wholly honourable.  Then glorious Hermes
longed for the sacrificial meat, for the sweet savour wearied
him, god though he was; nevertheless his proud heart was not
prevailed upon to devour the flesh, although he greatly desired
(19).  But he put away the fat and all the flesh in the high-
roofed byre, placing them high up to be a token of his youthful
theft.  And after that he gathered dry sticks and utterly
destroyed with fire all the hoofs and all the heads.

(ll. 138-154) And when the god had duly finished all, he threw
his sandals into deep-eddying Alpheus, and quenched the embers,
covering the black ashes with sand, and so spent the night while
Selene's soft light shone down.  Then the god went straight back
again at dawn to the bright crests of Cyllene, and no one met him
on the long journey either of the blessed gods or mortal men, nor
did any dog bark.  And luck-bringing Hermes, the son of Zeus,
passed edgeways through the key-hole of the hall like the autumn
breeze, even as mist: straight through the cave he went and came
to the rich inner chamber, walking softly, and making no noise as
one might upon the floor.  Then glorious Hermes went hurriedly to
his cradle, wrapping his swaddling clothes about his shoulders as
though he were a feeble babe, and lay playing with the covering
about his knees; but at his left hand he kept close his sweet
lyre.

(ll. 155-161) But the god did not pass unseen by the goddess his
mother; but she said to him: 'How now, you rogue!  Whence come
you back so at night-time, you that wear shamelessness as a
garment?  And now I surely believe the son of Leto will soon have
you forth out of doors with unbreakable cords about your ribs, or
you will live a rogue's life in the glens robbing by whiles.  Go
to, then; your father got you to be a great worry to mortal men
and deathless gods.'

(ll. 162-181) Then Hermes answered her with crafty words:
'Mother, why do you seek to frighten me like a feeble child whose
heart knows few words of blame, a fearful babe that fears its
mother's scolding?  Nay, but I will try whatever plan is best,
and so feed myself and you continually.  We will not be content
to remain here, as you bid, alone of all the gods unfee'd with
offerings and prayers.  Better to live in fellowship with the
deathless gods continually, rich, wealthy, and enjoying stories
of grain, than to sit always in a gloomy cave: and, as regards
honour, I too will enter upon the rite that Apollo has.  If my
father will not give it to me, I will seek -- and I am able -- to
be a prince of robbers.  And if Leto's most glorious son shall
seek me out, I think another and a greater loss will befall him.
For I will go to Pytho to break into his great house, and will
plunder therefrom splendid tripods, and cauldrons, and gold, and
plenty of bright iron, and much apparel; and you shall see it if
you will.'

(ll. 182-189) With such words they spoke together, the son of
Zeus who holds the aegis, and the lady Maia.  Now Eros the early
born was rising from deep-flowing Ocean, bringing light to men,
when Apollo, as he went, came to Onchestus, the lovely grove and
sacred place of the loud-roaring Holder of the Earth.  There he
found an old man grazing his beast along the pathway from his
court-yard fence, and the all-glorious Son of Leto began and said
to him.

(ll. 190-200) 'Old man, weeder (20) of grassy Onchestus, I am
come here from Pieria seeking cattle, cows all of them, all with
curving horns, from my herd.  The black bull was grazing alone
away from the rest, but fierce-eyed hounds followed the cows,
four of them, all of one mind, like men.  These were left behind,
the dogs and the bull -- which is great marvel; but the cows
strayed out of the soft meadow, away from the pasture when the
sun was just going down.  Now tell me this, old man born long
ago: have you seen one passing along behind those cows?'

(ll. 201-211) Then the old man answered him and said: 'My son, it
is hard to tell all that one's eyes see; for many wayfarers pass
to and fro this way, some bent on much evil, and some on good: it
is difficult to know each one.  However, I was digging about my
plot of vineyard all day long until the sun went down, and I
thought, good sir, but I do not know for certain, that I marked a
child, whoever the child was, that followed long-horned cattle --
an infant who had a staff and kept walking from side to side: he
was driving them backwards way, with their heads toward him.'

(ll. 212-218) So said the old man.  And when Apollo heard this
report, he went yet more quickly on his way, and presently,
seeing a long-winged bird, he knew at once by that omen that
thief was the child of Zeus the son of Cronos.  So the lord
Apollo, son of Zeus, hurried on to goodly Pylos seeking his
shambling oxen, and he had his broad shoulders covered with a
dark cloud.  But when the Far-Shooter perceived the tracks, he
cried:

(ll. 219-226) 'Oh, oh!  Truly this is a great marvel that my eyes
behold!  These are indeed the tracks of straight-horned oxen, but
they are turned backwards towards the flowery meadow.  But these
others are not the footprints of man or woman or grey wolves or
bears or lions, nor do I think they are the tracks of a rough-
maned Centaur -- whoever it be that with swift feet makes such
monstrous footprints; wonderful are the tracks on this side of
the way, but yet more wonderfully are those on that.'

(ll. 227-234) When he had so said, the lord Apollo, the Son of
Zeus hastened on and came to the forest-clad mountain of Cyllene
and the deep-shadowed cave in the rock where the divine nymph
brought forth the child of Zeus who is the son of Cronos.  A
sweet odour spread over the lovely hill, and many thin-shanked
sheep were grazing on the grass.  Then far-shooting Apollo
himself stepped down in haste over the stone threshold into the
dusky cave.

(ll. 235-253) Now when the Son of Zeus and Maia saw Apollo in a
rage about his cattle, he snuggled down in his fragrant
swaddling-clothes; and as wood-ash covers over the deep embers of
tree-stumps, so Hermes cuddled himself up when he saw the Far-
Shooter.  He squeezed head and hands and feet together in a small
space, like a new born child seeking sweet sleep, though in truth
he was wide awake, and he kept his lyre under his armpit.  But
the Son of Leto was aware and failed not to perceive the
beautiful mountain-nymph and her dear son, albeit a little child
and swathed so craftily.  He peered in ever corner of the great
dwelling and, taking a bright key, he opened three closets full
of nectar and lovely ambrosia.  And much gold and silver was
stored in them, and many garments of the nymph, some purple and
some silvery white, such as are kept in the sacred houses of the
blessed gods.  Then, after the Son of Leto had searched out the
recesses of the great house, he spake to glorious Hermes:

(ll. 254-259) 'Child, lying in the cradle, make haste and tell me
of my cattle, or we two will soon fall out angrily.  For I will
take and cast you into dusty Tartarus and awful hopeless
darkness, and neither your mother nor your father shall free you
or bring you up again to the light, but you will wander under the
earth and be the leader amongst little folk.' (21)

(ll. 260-277) Then Hermes answered him with crafty words: 'Son of
Leto, what harsh words are these you have spoken?  And is it
cattle of the field you are come here to seek?  I have not seen
them: I have not heard of them: no one has told me of them.  I
cannot give news of them, nor win the reward for news.  Am I like
a cattle-liter, a stalwart person?  This is no task for me:
rather I care for other things: I care for sleep, and milk of my
mother's breast, and wrappings round my shoulders, and warm
baths.  Let no one hear the cause of this dispute; for this would
be a great marvel indeed among the deathless gods, that a child
newly born should pass in through the forepart of the house with
cattle of the field: herein you speak extravagantly.  I was born
yesterday, and my feet are soft and the ground beneath is rough;
nevertheless, if you will have it so, I will swear a great oath
by my father's head and vow that neither am I guilty myself,
neither have I seen any other who stole your cows -- whatever
cows may be; for I

1123

A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in

The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside

A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down—

Late, my grandson! half the morning have I paced these sandy tracts,
Watch'd again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts,

Wander'd back to living boyhood while I heard the curlews call,
I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall.

So--your happy suit was blasted--she the faultless, the divine;
And you liken--boyish babble--this boy-love of yours with mine.

I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past;
Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last.

'Curse him!' curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage?
Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard's age.

Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? yet perhaps she was not wise;
I remember how you kiss'd the miniature with those sweet eyes.

In the hall there hangs a painting--Amy's arms about my neck--
Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck.

In my life there was a picture, she that clasp'd my neck had flown;
I was left within the shadow sitting on the wreck alone.

Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake?
You, not you! your modern amourist is of easier, earthlier make.

Amy loved me, Amy fail'd me, Amy was a timid child;
But your Judith--but your worldling--she had never driven me wild.

She that holds the diamond necklace dearer than the golden ring,
She that finds a winter sunset fairer than a morn of Spring.

She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life,
While she vows 'till death shall part us,' she the would-be-widow wife.

She the worldling born of worldlings--father, mother--be content,
Ev'n the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent.

Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground,
Lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound.

Cross'd! for once he sail'd the sea to crush the Moslem in his pride;
Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died.

Yet how often I and Amy in the mouldering aisle have stood,
Gazing for one pensive moment on that founder of our blood.

There again I stood to-day, and where of old we knelt in prayer,
Close beneath the casement crimson with the shield of Locksley--there,

All in white Italian marble, looking still as if she smiled,
Lies my Amy dead in child-birth, dead the mother, dead the child.

Dead--and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband now--
I this old white-headed dreamer stoopt and kiss'd her marble brow.

Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate tears,
Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet's dawning years.

Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall'n away.
Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day.

Gone the tyrant of my youth, and mute below the chancel stones,
All his virtues--I forgive them--black in white above his bones.

Gone the comrades of my bivouac, some in fight against the foe,
Some thro' age and slow diseases, gone as all on earth will go.

Gone with whom for forty years my life in golden sequence ran,
She with all the charm of woman, she with all the breadth of man,

Strong in will and rich in wisdom, Edith, yet so lowly-sweet,
Woman to her inmost heart, and woman to her tender feet,

Very woman of very woman, nurse of ailing body and mind,
She that link'd again the broken chain that bound me to my kind.

Here to-day was Amy with me, while I wander'd down the coast,
Near us Edith's holy shadow, smiling at the slighter ghost.

Gone our sailor son thy father, Leonard early lost at sea;
Thou alone, my boy, of Amy's kin and mine art left to me.

Gone thy tender-natured mother, wearying to be left alone,
Pining for the stronger heart that once had beat beside her own.

Truth, for Truth is Truth, he worshipt, being true as he was brave;
Good, for Good is Good, he follow'd, yet he look'd beyond the grave,

Wiser there than you, that crowning barren Death as lord of all,
Deem this over-tragic drama's closing curtain is the pall!

Beautiful was death in him, who saw the death, but kept the deck,
Saving women and their babes, and sinking with the sinking wreck,

Gone for ever! Ever? no--for since our dying race began,
Ever, ever, and for ever was the leading light of man.

Those that in barbarian burials ****'d the slave, and slew the wife,
Felt within themselves the sacred passion of the second life.

Indian warriors dream of ampler hunting grounds beyond the night;
Ev'n the black Australian dying hopes he shall return, a white.

Truth for truth, and good for good! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Just--
Take the charm 'For ever' from them, and they crumble into dust.

Gone the cry of 'Forward, Forward,' lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.

Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!

'Forward' rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of 'Forward' till ten thousand years have gone.

Far among the vanish'd races, old Assyrian kings would flay
Captives whom they caught in battle--iron-hearted victors they.

Ages after, while in Asia, he that led the wild Moguls,
Timur built his ghastly tower of eighty thousand human skulls,

Then, and here in Edward's time, an age of noblest English names,
Christian conquerors took and flung the conquer'd Christian into flames.

Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the great;
Christian love among the Churches look'd the twin of heathen hate.

From the golden alms of Blessing man had coin'd himself a curse:
Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter, which was crueller? which was worse?

France had shown a light to all men, preach'd a Gospel, all men's good;
Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the light with blood.

Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begun--
Crown'd with sunlight--over darkness--from the still unrisen sun.

Have we grown at last beyond the passions of the primal clan?
'**** your enemy, for you hate him,' still, 'your enemy' was a man.

Have we sunk below them? peasants maim the helpless horse, and drive
Innocent cattle under thatch, and burn the kindlier brutes alive.

Brutes, the brutes are not your wrongers--burnt at midnight, found at morn,
Twisted hard in mortal agony with their offspring, born-unborn,

Clinging to the silent mother! Are we devils? are we men?
Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again,

He that in his Catholic wholeness used to call the very flowers
Sisters, brothers--and the beasts--whose pains are hardly less than ours!

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell how all will end?
Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend.

Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past,
Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last.

Ay, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise:
When was age so cramm'd with menace? madness? written, spoken lies?

Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn,
Cries to Weakest as to Strongest, 'Ye are equals, equal-born.'

Equal-born? O yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat.
Charm us, Orator, till the Lion look no larger than the Cat,

Till the Cat thro' that mirage of overheated language loom
Larger than the Lion,--Demos end in working its own doom.

Russia bursts our Indian barrier, shall we fight her? shall we yield?
Pause! before you sound the trumpet, hear the voices from the field.

Those three hundred millions under one Imperial sceptre now,
Shall we hold them? shall we loose them? take the suffrage of the plow.

Nay, but these would feel and follow Truth if only you and you,
Rivals of realm-ruining party, when you speak were wholly true.

Plowmen, Shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still could find,
Sons of God, and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind,

Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar;
So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher.

Here and there a cotter's babe is royal-born by right divine;
Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine.

Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! once again the sickening game;
Freedom, free to slay herself, and dying while they shout her name.

Step by step we gain'd a freedom known to Europe, known to all;
Step by step we rose to greatness,--thro' the tonguesters we may fall.

You that woo the Voices--tell them 'old experience is a fool,'
Teach your flatter'd kings that only those who cannot read can rule.

Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place;
Pillory Wisdom in your markets, pelt your offal at her face.

Tumble Nature heel o'er head, and, yelling with the yelling street,
Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet.

Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope,
Break the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down the *****.

Authors--essayist, atheist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part,
Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of Art.

Rip your brothers' vices open, strip your own foul passions bare;
Down with Reticence, down with Reverence--forward--naked--let them stare.

Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer;
Send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure.

Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism,--
Forward, forward, ay and backward, downward too into the abysm.

Do your best to charm the worst, to lower the rising race of men;
Have we risen from out the beast, then back into the beast again?

Only 'dust to dust' for me that sicken at your lawless din,
Dust in wholesome old-world dust before the newer world begin.

Heated am I? you--you wonder--well, it scarce becomes mine age--
Patience! let the dying actor mouth his last upon the stage.

Cries of unprogressive dotage ere the dotard fall asleep?
Noises of a current narrowing, not the music of a deep?

Ay, for doubtless I am old, and think gray thoughts, for I am gray:
After all the stormy changes shall we find a changeless May?

After madness, after massacre, Jacobinism and Jacquerie,
Some diviner force to guide us thro' the days I shall not see?

When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Republics fall,
Something kindlier, higher, holier--all for each and each for all?

All the full-brain, half-brain races, led by Justice, Love, and Truth;
All the millions one at length with all the visions of my youth?

All diseases quench'd by Science, no man halt, or deaf or blind;
Stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body, larger mind?

Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue--
I have seen her far away--for is not Earth as yet so young?--

Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion ****'d,
Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert till'd,

Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles,
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles.

Warless? when her tens are thousands, and her thousands millions, then--
All her harvest all too narrow--who can fancy warless men?

Warless? war will die out late then. Will it ever? late or soon?
Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead world the moon?

Dead the new astronomy calls her. . . . On this day and at this hour,
In this gap between the sandhills, whence you see the Locksley tower,

Here we met, our latest meeting--Amy--sixty years ago--
She and I--the moon was falling greenish thro' a rosy glow,

Just above the gateway tower, and even where you see her now--
Here we stood and claspt each other, swore the seeming-deathless vow. . . .

Dead, but how her living glory lights the hall, the dune, the grass!
Yet the moonlight is the sunlight, and the sun himself will pass.

Venus near her! smiling downward at this earthlier earth of ours,
Closer on the Sun, perhaps a world of never fading flowers.

Hesper, whom the poet call'd the Bringer home of all good things.
All good things may move in Hesper, perfect peoples, perfect kings.

Hesper--Venus--were we native to that splendour or in Mars,
We should see the Globe we groan in, fairest of their evening stars.

Could we dream of wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite,
Roaring London, raving Paris, in that point of peaceful light?

Might we not in glancing heavenward on a star so silver-fair,
Yearn, and clasp the hands and murmur, 'Would to God that we were there'?

Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the immeasurable sea,
Sway'd by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known to you or me.

All the suns--are these but symbols of innumerable man,
Man or Mind that sees a shadow of the planner or the plan?

Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere?
Well be grateful for the sounding watchword, 'Evolution' here,

Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good,
And Reversion ever dragging Evolution in the mud.

What are men that He should heed us? cried the king of sacred song;
Insects of an hour, that hourly work their brother insect wrong,

While the silent Heavens roll, and Suns along their fiery way,
All their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles a day.

Many an aeon moulded earth before her highest, man, was born,
Many an aeon too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn,

Earth so huge, and yet so bounded--pools of salt, and plots of land--
Shallow skin of green and azure--chains of mountain, grains of sand!

Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by,
Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye,

Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro' the human soul;
Boundless inward, in the atom, boundless outward, in the Whole.

                                                *

Here is Locksley Hall, my grandson, here the lion-guarded gate.
Not to-night in Locksley Hall--to-morrow--you, you come so late.

Wreck'd--your train--or all but wreck'd? a shatter'd wheel? a vicious boy!
Good, this forward, you that preach it, is it well to wish you joy?

Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the Time,
City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?

There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street.

There the Master scrimps his haggard sempstress of her daily bread,
There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead.

There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor,
And the crowded couch of ****** in the warrens of the poor.

Nay, your pardon, cry your 'forward,' yours are hope and youth, but I--
Eighty winters leave the dog too lame to follow with the cry,

Lame and old, and past his time, and passing now into the night;
Yet I would the rising race were half as eager for the light.

Light the fading gleam of Even? light the glimmer of the dawn?
Aged eyes may take the growing glimmer for the gleam withdrawn.

Far away beyond her myriad coming changes earth will be
Something other than the wildest modern guess of you and me.

Earth may reach her earthly-worst, or if she gain her earthly-best,
Would she find her human offspring this ideal man at rest?

Forward then, but still remember how the course of Time will swerve,
Crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve.

Not the Hall to-night, my grandson! Death and Silence hold their own.
Leave the Master in the first dark hour of his last sleep alone.

Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic Squire,
Kindly landlord, boon companion--youthful jealousy is a liar.

Cast the poison from your *****, oust the madness from your brain.
Let the trampled serpent show you that you have not lived in vain.

Youthful! youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school,
Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool.

Yonder lies our young sea-village--Art and Grace are less and less:
Science grows and Beauty dwindles--roofs of slated hideousness!

There is one old Hostel left us where they swing the Locksley shield,
Till the peasant cow shall **** the 'Lion passant' from his field.

Poo

We see the world through crests and troughs of light,
That points to many things, returns to show,
What's there before us so that we may know,
The world existing in our precious sight.

Yet what if what we see, and think is right,
by virtue of unveiling of its glow,
Is merely part of what the light won't show,
of that which lives forever in the night?

What could there be that human eye won't see,
Which by this lack of sight we sure deny;
And what of those we love who've passed away?

Between the crest and trough at some degree,
Are things on Earth attributed to sky,
And by a few degrees are kept at bay?

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.

I'm staining your raiment with blood while rolling my tongue to create a sputum so that I can wipe off that blood from your raiment. But, you know what I don't want you to clean your shroud because it is a paradigm of our potential—blood. This blood is so potent that it will remind you of me because it is our dark side where we encapsulate. It is something which makes us distinct in our privy shell. Smears of this blood can create revolutions. You know how? Its redness denotes the umlauts of our love and its states depends upon the crests and troughs of our relationship. When we are reaching the crests, it gets brimmed with oxygen and give rise to a new life but the best part is that our troughs don't boost up the mortality rate, instead bring us back to the life. See, how such a small drop of red liquid is so significant for the two of us. It's because it's not a drop of 'liquid' but life. Blood is life, life is blood. We are blood, blood ARE us!

The world, it comes
in peaks and troughs,
first sun and stars,
then rain and frost -
no tricks or cheats
to how it works.
Life, my friend
is quite absurd.

ECG

They showed the broken rhythm of my heart
With inky ripples traced in peaks and troughs
The night when sudden life was torn apart
Left echoes like a dry persistant cough
This paper trail more signature of self
Than any scribbled scrawl of given names
More indication of my vital health
Than any poet’s talk of light or flames
My quick survival charted there as fact.
“And here, you see a murmured aftershock”
The remnant spider scribe of heart attack
My ailing pulse, my brittle ticking tock
Once took a moment’s beat to catch its breath
And left me reeling at the edge of death.

Kaitelka; Whale Mongolic down, first whale which said syndrome, evidenced by their presence, as didgeridoo, as spitting but more hypersonic, hyper cetacean moving his tail, Burguete funds, learned to swim faster than anything, but the Nautilus, not He paid attention to his mother in his care skills, but bad luck that can befall if not moderate their exalting and allergic omitted cases to obey.

So all blue, but little Kaitelka, seeking friendship among their peers, but he put  a tambourine limit gave him leftovers and liked more than a day a thousand years of perfect instincts. So step aside by the fire, and dodged the deafening roar of nymph Satinga; the most ancient senator of the headpiece, always full on its plateau of ******* hydrochloride that resistance, if they pass a thousand years and I do not understand these pairs, I adjusted my engine, but to no avail me, my instincts are diluted and slim as downpour edges left by the wayside in infants and solfa. That Jesus Light was said behind the screen rainbow arch, he takes her hand to Kaitelka, and back by the outer estuary, they attack by instinct ministry of evil.

Mildew petrified oaks, disorients the abject warty troughs the disordering of the genetic instinct, if I have to pause my essence, I leave in the hands of Joshua stone from beyond. Where the ticket is worth more to me, but I get the same. Where evil knows well, but tasteless well. Underground, underwater., Kaitelka take any more, wheels come and go, instinct taking shredding herbs near the sea, no longer separates me more. Bright the famous day that rebukes my dreams rather than a whole, plastering, or monument flash highborn of Mongolic loves whales, classless or inheritances acquired record. Kaitelka and in gratitude to accompany my walk, to the junction of Lisbon, walking from room to room, to begin the pilgrimage, his steps were Glup, Glup like a pretty varmint, over the hills she is beginning to the descritery of Satinga, or rather the descritery of Sapiens Hommo, rummaging instinct of love today, then unloved. Native forests make pairings, but separate links non-energy cataclysms, similar to the new alliance valley radial wave, tuned cetacean sonar power can be glimpsed.

The Ministry of Evil is no end to the retrospective marvel at Noe, Isaac or Abraham, or Luther King, is the delayed form of unsettled muscle primo Evo madding to neo Evo updated, and neither bells sound the same, as reboot gray phthisis diseases degenerate and synthetic. The instinct to put your hands into the fire will be lost ..., so more pace to the back of them cutting the seas in arithmetical divisions, if commend my antidepressants depressive relatives, caress the sea in each constipated solstice, I go every night with daisies in my hands defying every cliff, every cave turned into a tavern, killing instinct, when the brain is nothing, sprayed kerosene on stage, to see my beloved before he dies of a blowgun.  

Joshua Stone and Bernardolipus in a crossroad, spin the grazing, the black sheep, is barren, its classic label of Segregated debased soul, but defecated humanoid comment sing out of tune the territory themselves.  Three-step, three-way, Joshua embraces Bernardolipo. Welcome starts. Satinga you slice ferns and wild beast, vomits both diazepams swallowed, do not sleep, dreams transpose half orb. Halos, half halos, iridescent arcades, and warm breezes, must preamble Donated high liking. Soft and warm look, I do not lose my plate potato near my belly, warm adobe cellar. Nymph Satinga of reaction in reaction out of tune and the highlights midwife psoriasis for its reddish dermis by a fungus worming. The re instinct starts to chew his skull, dread end of the border. The cookies Lord is sending us on napkins.

Pre urbane figure born, they appear a hundred suns, so the crowd out who has the audacity to reveal the discrete enigma, the puzzle while the floor moves the seizure ... all stunned waiting for the flash Ritual to start the preliminary stage, the paradigm of unshelled trees, tough tables roll by the church at the foot of flowers crocuses scrolls flat estate. For the baptistery inscrutability warmth your network back double halo on the moon, scrub that level. Abyss where I fall near aspire to the coachman, I go away over time from heaven minute no second in hours where the avalanche of time lose my look to hold any deity that does not prevent the tendency to lose those not facing front, a day like this you do not walk any shadow, nor the Horcondising I would like to Santorini. The Borker wrongheaded, burning a cigar in rib Kaitelka, it provides a stunning scream as the end of the world, giving birth to the sky his beautiful breeding, as a good omen to present to the crowd in the Octagon and pleased transit day often fruity crestfallen fig.  

Adelimpia,  Strongly taken the and Thunder Aunt, washed in the backroom their aprons with Christmas, whose magical and enlightening sense, they were the Three Wise Princes, sons of the same kings of Israel. Sitting on some cobs, heritages from last wheel spikes. On warm evenings mantra Baba Nam Kevalam, I do not stay alone without others to see this magical high flood flow mention aversion in pontificates, necessary, pal meal with wine apocalyptic pale rider, Napoleonic soldier dethroned.

Thousands of hectares grassland in loving with heavenly muddy, as adhering to the force of Sorcery Camphor to move everything to the midnight launch eclipse. Thousands of hectares squirts do not possess any extension ratio, giddiness master eye, losing possession. What is Slice is Caren Lagoon, which is Alhué Village is Polulo mountain near the place, what Pichi of Barrancas... Out of my roles temple or regulators, as night plans still dating Jack, with overall equidistant to all orphan girl lost in the jungle inbenign . Cutting room of breath begins threshing., afar put the trays, and poor saint not to attend, this clever move, all atheists bruised, stiff and deprived of the worst failure smoothness, it´s the earth not plowed,                    
              
Dreams whistles hills ... Ghosts and spurs  ... Elegy opaque optical floors, all at Aunty Thunder dream the same...

If you can call night, inland sea waves have to educate infant’s tsunamis, they live among geological forces off the coast of scudding clouds of ... where she cuts through. Where our conscience, should play down a Machiavellian zero to roll it to the belly of the whale down. Their heavy udders milk, as long as a wild bird dueled, mounted in their beards, but the bird slips for his little body often and disadvantaged, to fall into the enzyme flash neuron meditatively; aspiring meditatively. While tsunamis grow, the mountains grow, decreases Hommo sapiens, conscience, he has left, minus zero exiled to the **** pony pens, to create their neighborhood over the eyes of a pupil of warty lameness. Reborn storm, stately power, Nymph Hetaira, who seduces the ringer smith, golden horseshoe, pal new millennium. His no longer harp, sewing lips ant, threading needles Grandma milking herbs get a grotto, families abandoned, shrill understatement by the echoes of the West, for you my Transients soliloquy turbid straightening of holistic aqueous molecules who want to sleep in my hands.

Good beverage, good consciousness nursery. Sleepily he walks by the barbed wire of stupid sort of busybody in thickness bolognese, or bandoneon, pilaster grandson male, to Vizcaya sailing or North Toscana, where after a barricade, Piedmont jumps to the south under Pichi.

They are falling water molecules on Maitén tree, or Tomato Adelimpia bow, and on the fibrous and head hair grass grandmamma Anna. Junks greet Bernardolipo, which was fishing with his wounded eyes, but the rub his mouth on the back of Kaitelka, calcium verve in carrousel turned. Line up the right hand, bottled lady Juana, he stretched to crush cilantro, but no ... or both...

Reigns for ?, to allocate a stop along the way, West Side Story Pichi. We are a few steps from misting dawn of propionate Stoics lash the oppressed people, clear water, singing  ... neuron in neuron, the cell last neuron, with the bow remained foul-mouthed, to shuffle, or Kawashkar Chilean Indian the slice of the leg, looking shoe children who roam the street without a blanket. They close their eyes, tears of shame. Here you are ecstatic stiffs arrows bows, feathers swaying in edgings shields tangled, hordes of haggard eyes flamed flames that no impudence and, which limp to a scoundrel that stuns resistant to fall on the sand. Show your dream, that dream bathe.

Continues the fierce Primor, falls brochures from red heaven fall prayers stammering to advance on this land saga, fall rustic donatives of grandmamma Mayor of coelum, Joshua insomniac in his tabernacle, defoliating his tome skip and jump down the estuary, before every misstep, holy water to step, a smile the Loica rural place Or a caress to the cheek moon in the arms of a blackbird, manacled to a rasp, stove teapot levitating top where grandmamma Adelimpia wheezes. Hail Mary ever ******, the other day, I heard that in September, flapping fall on Fiddler praise, perhaps mediate, for bad talking, founder of my undying love of life joined empty verbs on clovers where I to live forever, pre, pre paella prize moaning on my shoulder osteoarthritis crucifying collapsed tree. Nightmare builds a ship to reach Legion Mary. Centerfold, guns, howitzers, dissident’s ovaries ... final pages, declamatory winds ... perhaps agonizing leg expectantly... Or delusional feet of premature mortality, which brought pray to heaven, earth ... at soon I have to forget. The earth gives me the cheese, and bread sandwiching it goes...

Between him and earth coelum I doze my motive piece body, my shepherd Beetle Maximilian of Auschwitz sprayed me holy water the Vistula, I kneel down my hinges, and my hands for pray by pure attained effort, ***** great feat, who believes fall the abyss, and just below the earth tremulous, bell, first-throat yawning, loose cassock sounds a rainy morning, falling in the forest priority to see all morning, brimming with couplets of snow.

Continue to fall aqueous molecules, Kaitelka divides the estuary waters. Sheets of – Talami rural high lawns and wise water, South of  Pichi. Follow the dream, and just needed to uprighted the cabin, roaring gallop, wake up tomorrow morning sweaty dancing aqua, font of Lourdes, the four simultaneously open their headlights eyes, unblinking as echoes swimming duck feeding their young in the obsidian lagoon. Rock palafitte a piece of coal painted black each carriage serene, going from the Cantillana Mountain. Blasphemes morning fall roe bellowing wind annoyed tongue, windless striding through the window, thunderbirds mistress thousand flanks, now mount the besieged strands of colloidal solid. Elegy, opaque optical dreams, and drovers days nearsighted, soon saved our lives...

The never End.

A transfer of energy
e=
ye know, in the higgs,
do we still honor the guy
that idea had? Capital letters confer honor,
in my literary culture.
Honor is not always due.
Higgs did the math, so H is honoring
his attention to detail, there for duty to honor
knowns predicted by men augmented
with reason, conlogique, mit prehensile
minds capable of accounting for believable unseeables.

Despise not the day of small things,
the boson thinglet, math says those ef
fect, in fact, make
mass, any thing that ever matters
at all.
'Justathought.

( A syllable at a time saves stitches,
don't run with scissors, beware
the concise)

Whet the Mobius edge,
Ping, inside, outside, one side, one edge, light
glint, bent gravitasish, bouncing,
crissing and crossing at every vector in time from this
particularity, a dimensional dialectic duality,

whys and hows dancing

that's the field at work, maybe,
whence things making matter matter rise up,
may be not.
Real quick decicisions happen
in that field idea.

Nur Herr Doctors, Master Professors of
Sophia's Sacred Secreted Truths may enact the
Matriculate's escape from dominion of higgsian rules
by endowing
hidden treasure, for baksheesh,  in power spells
and chants and cheers and degrees of
blood sworn oathz.

E pluribus unem is one of 'em, I learned.
Too spiritual a' idea to be allowed
but to them whose cogitatin'
warn't troubled, them
secret keepers,
the civilizeers'ad vizeers in Teflon tenured towers
overlooked some honorable ideas,
Higgs, so what? We all know
Things be that we can only imagine seeing.

Which reminded me, not all bubbles are spherical.

You know. You have seen big long stretchy
silicon re-enforced detergent
bubbles, on TV.

The higgs field of reality is such a bubble,

to my mind. Can you imagine that?
to my mind away

we went as if we were wind, whispers
in the storm.

Settle down. All that can be de
constructed can be de
solved, dis
cerned, de
fined,
As re-al ways made where no way was.
Riddle or rhyme, which is easier to remember?
Riddle locks to keywords
Ryhme locks to a sound and sound locks to
tune
tones, frequency
found, perfect peaks and troughs then
keywords unlock the channel
where living and life are wave and particle,
medium and message sent.
=========
If there were shame on your nation,
was that shame on you, like an extension,
or like a pro jected ob jection...

juxt aposit just a point in the field upon which

the story you know is no lie, it mattered and
may rise,

knave to wizard, if you

tell it funny.
funny only hurts when evil people do it.

Be the clown, bounce into the spot,
"Gotdim, gotdimimim, fuggafuggagubbledy boo"

Magi fool, lies about the futil-if-ity of sisting,
in the world, he will eat you alive, lest you know
the word. Or the riddle.

Inspire, expire, that sort of thing, but
spiritual. A trans fer of con
served en
ergy, via demiurge, per
hapmayhap and
magi transisters

regularizing the flow
through the locks, in
formation
for ward
flow, that's all they know.
Our servants who motivate us,
all they do is use our breath and our blood
to charge up the ATP batteries by the billions,
until we cannot withstand the pressure.

A fugettin' consarnation story teller,
who then lies, and sows discord among bretheren,
by adding to and taking from the story,
pre suming knowns unknown are
mere myth the magi invented
mit wit and subtle twisting.

Novices, apprentices,
those ain't allowed to eat pearls 'til they wisdom
teeth come in,
that penultimate major marker, of maturation,
in the gut
brain input-putout exchange system,

once those have changed the way
vortices of taste
swirl words down the eustacion
spiral, then

The frontal cortex kicks in and God only knows
the tune we sing in ryth'm
with the snow flake rhymes framing my window pane.

If there were shame on my nation, like a ***** snow... then a flood,,,
dark, near no light, shame, shame shame... thick, glacial
filth filtering frozen
liar shame, bully shame, lover of twisted rights shame;
war would never melt it.

Thus global warming. Just in time.

Realized liberty, bike lanes,
okeh, Bret Weinstein is right, they do measure liberty

all my roads have double yellow lines, as a measure of safety
in a two-way world.
{which is partly why the code in DNA runs one way}

measuring minding
trips my trigger, to what I was thinking of writing
while watching a whispy-white haired man-my-age,
measuring the edge of a two-story house,

which a good man is building for his daughter,
down the hill, from where I sit.
That old man is bowed, in a compressed spine
kinda way,
bam bam men walked that way, in China, before the dams.

Tote that bail, tug that rope, nuthadayowe-der wise,
otherwise, aliens versus everything
pop knowns
you had locked away, in those gated intellectual troughs.
Yes, yes, troughs,
Pigs eat from troughs, cows eat from cribs,
chickens eat from dirt and sheep *** all the grass for wool
to pull over our eyes
filtering lies
like sunlight under big old Pines shading little old
Rosemary patches that feed bees,
wooly eyes, wise
meander, would you say away from world's wisest men discussing
what may be done, we set a spell, make peace with
having nothing else to do.

-- that sorta ran through my mind as I watched the elderly carpenter.
He was careful, but not afraid, aware.
He stepped from joist to joist,
at the very edge of the second story peak edge
perpendicular to the foundation square,

eye-ball-level to me
slow and steady he takes a tape, {such a witty invention}
a tape attached to a spring,
whereas once such things were actual hinged wands that unfolded
at the flick of an old wizards wrist,

then out came the soapstone, to lay down the line,
make the mark.
Here is where we cut, measure twice,
cut once,

he is sayin' in his mind, to me, I think, I imagine being told
this is how we learn what is right.
we learn to measure what works by what is.

If the distance between two points is beyond the reach, oopshit
I got distracted and he fell.