And no one round the charmed circle speaks.

Only the loved Hebe bears

The cup about, whose draughts beguile

Pain and care, with a dark store

Of fresh-pulled violets wreathed and nodding o'er;
And her flushed feet glow on the marble floor.

EMPEDOCLES.

He fables, yet speaks truth!

The brave impetuous heart yields everywhere

To the subtle, contriving head;

Great qualities are trodden down,

And littleness united

Is become invincible.

These rumblings are not Typho's groans, I know!

These angry smoke-bursts

Are not the passionate breath

Of the mountain-crushed, tortured, intractable Titan

king!

But over all the world

What suffering is there not seen

Of plainness oppressed by cunning,
As the well-counselled Zeus oppressed

The self-helping son of earth!

What anguish of greatness

Railed and hunted from the world,

Because its simplicity rebukes

This envious, miserable age!

I am weary of it!

Lie there, ye ensigns

Of my unloved pre-eminence
In an age like this!

Among a people of children,

Who thronged me in their cities,

Who worshipped me in their houses,

And asked, not wisdom,

But drugs to charm with,

But spells to mutter

All the fool's-armory of magic! — Lie there,

My golden circlet!

My purple robe !

CALLICLES (from below).

As the sky-brightening south wind clears the day,

And makes the massed clouds roll,

The music of the lyre blows away

The clouds that wrap the soul.

O that Fate had let me see

That triumph of the sweet, persuasive lyre!

That famous, final victory

When jealous Pan with Marsyas did conspire!

When, from far Parnassus' side,

Young Apollo, all the pride

Of the Phrygian flutes to tame,
To the Phrygian highlands came !
Where the long green reed-beds sway
In the rippled waters gray
Of that solitary lake

Where Mæander's springs are born;
Where the ridged pine-wooded roots
Of Messogis westward break,
Mounting westward, high and higher.
There was held the famous strife;
There the Phrygian brought his flutes,
And Apollo brought his lyre;

And, when now the westering sun
Touched the hills, the strife was done,

And the attentive Muses said:

66

Marsyas thou art vanquished." Then Apollo's minister

Hanged upon a branching fir

Marsyas, that unhappy Faun,

And began to whet his knife.

But the Mænads, who were there,

Left their friend, and with robes flowing

In the wind, and loose dark hair
O'er their polished bosoms blowing,
Each her ribboned tambourine
Flinging on the mountain sod,
With a lovely frightened mien

Came about the youthful God.

But he turned his beauteous face
Haughtily another way,

From the grassy sun-warmed place
Where in proud repose he lay,
With one arm over his head,
Watching how the whetting sped.

But aloof, on the lake strand,
Did the young Olympus stand,
Weeping at his master's end;

For the Faun had been his friend.
For he taught him how to sing,

And he taught him flute-playing.

Many a morning had they gone

To the glimmering mountain lakes,
And had torn up by the roots

The tall crested water reeds

With long plumes, and soft brown seeds,
And had carved them into flutes,
Sitting on a tabled stone

Where the shoreward ripple breaks.
And he taught him how to please
The red-snooded Phrygian girls,
Whom the summer evening sees
Flashing in the dance's whirls
Underneath the starlit trees
In the mountain villages.
Therefore now Olympus stands,
At his master's piteous cries
Pressing fast with both his hands

His white garment to his eyes,

Not to see Apollo's scorn;

Ah, poor Faun, poor Faun! ah, poor Faun!

And lie thou there,

My laurel bough!

EMPEDOCLES.