ΙΟ 20 30 40 50 Lest men think us friends turned foes, What one word of his confession Kneel and stand! That makes the scene. Waves that chafe? The idlest fancy! See, where Juno strikes Ixion, Look me in the eyes once! Steady! On that eve when we two first What if to the self-same place in Of the village church once more, You appealed to "As, below, Friends, my four! You, Priest, confess him! I have judged the culprit there: Now you three, stab thick and fast, Father, thanks! Would you tell me, though I lured All its secrets to that breast author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," and the mother of the second Mrs. Shelley, was born in 1759. She fell in love with Fuseli, the well-known artist, who, however, with the able assistance of Mrs. Fuseli, contrived not to be won. Mary Wollstonecraft then went to Paris, and lived with Mr. Imlay, nor was it till after his desertion of her that she met and eventually married William Godwin. She was barely thirty-nine years old when she died in 1797.] 60 I have not quickened his pulse one beat, Fixed a moment's fancy, bitter or sweet: Yet the strong fierce heart's love's labour's due, Utterly lost, was - you! ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE. ONE day it thundered and lightened. Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, At the feet of the man who sat betwixt; And "Mercy!" cried each -- "if I tell the truth Of a passage in my youth!" Said This: "Do you mind the morning I met your love with scorning? As the worst of the venom left my lips, I thought 'If, despite this lie, he strips The mask from my soul with a kiss crawl His slave, soul, body and all!'" Said That: "We stood to be married; I 'If Paradise-door prove locked?' smiled you 20 I thought, as I nodded, smiling too, 30 [A king of the Lapithæ in Thessaly, who in consequence of his murdering his wife's father was "boycotted" by mankind. Zeus took compassion on him and let him into heaven, where, however, he fell in love with Heré, and was permitted to think he had embraced her in the form of a cloud. Zeus banished him, and as a punishment Ixion was tied to a perpetually revolving wheel.] HIGH in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, behold us! Here the revenge of a God, there the amends of a Man. Whirling for ever in torment, flesh once mortal, immortal Made for a purpose of hate - able Till, consummate at length, lo, the employment of sense! Pain's mere minister now to the soul, once pledged to her pleasure Soul, if untrammelled by flesh, unapprehensive of pain! Body, professed soul's slave, which serving beguiled and betrayed her, Made things false seem true, cheated thro' eye and thro' ear, Lured thus heart and brain to believe in the lying reported, Spurn but the traitorous slave, utter- 50 most atom, away, What should obstruct soul's rush on the real, the only apparent? Say I have erred, Ixion or Zeus? how else? Was I Foiled by my senses I dreamed; I doubt less awaken in wonder: This proves shine, that shade? Good was the evil that seemed? Shall I, with sight thus gained, by torture be taught I was blind once? Sisuphos, teaches thy stone - Tantalos, teaches thy thirst Aught which unaided sense, purged pure, less plainly demonstrates? No, for the past was dream: now that the dreamers awake, Sisuphos scouts low fraud, and to Tantalos treason is folly. Ask of myself, whose form melts on the 6 murderous wheel, What is the sin which throe and throe prove sin to the sinner! Say the false charge was true, - thus do I expiate, say, Arrogant thought, word, deed, mere man who conceited me godlike, Sat beside Zeus, my friend - knelt before Heré, my love! Render, in thought, word, deed, back "Ay, but the pain is to punish thee!" Speak I was of Thessaly king, there ruled and a Mine to establish the law, theirs to obey Wherefore? Because of the good to the What of the weakling, the ignorant crim- Breaking my law braved death, knowing Nay, but the feeble and foolish, the poor No whit more than a tree, born to erect- Palm or plane or pine, we laud if lofty, leave to the Loathe if athwart, askew, Just one pebble at root ruined the Whose fine vigilance follows the sapling, Here blew wind, so it bent: there the Also the tooth of the beast, bird's bill, Gnawed, gnarled, warped their worst: King I was man, no more: what I recog- Watch and ward o'er the sapling at birth Life to retraverse the past, light to retrieve the misdeed? Thus had I done, and thus to have done much more it behoves thee, Zeus who madest man flawless or faulty, thy work! What if the charge were true, as thou mouthest, Ixion the cherished Minion of Zeus grew vain, vied with the godships and fell, Forfeit thro' arrogance? Stranger! I clothed, with the grace of our human, Inhumanity - gods, natures I likened to ours. Man among men I had borne me till gods forsooth must regard me -Nay, must approve, applaud, claim 40 as a comrade at last. Summoned to enter their circle, I sat "I their equal, how other? Love should be absolute love, faith is in fulness or nought. am thy friend, be mine!" smiled Zeus: "If Heré attract thee," Blushed the imperial cheek, "then thy heart may suggest!" as Faith in me sprang to the faith, my love Then from the fellow of gods - misery's 50 - Man henceforth and for ever, who lent from the glow of his nature Warmth to the cold, with light coloured the black and the blank. So did a man conceive of your passion, you passion-protesters! So did he trust, so love being the truth of your lie! You to aspire to be Man! Man made you who vainly would ape him: You are the hollowness, he filling you, falsifies void. hin- Even as witness the emblem, Hell's sad triumph suspended, time had saved it, nor simply Criminals passing to doom shuddered Could I have probed thro' the face to the Had I not stayed the consignment to doom, Born of my tears, sweat, blood burst Arching my torment, an iris ghostlike startles the darkness, Cold white jewelry quenched — jus- 60 tifies, glorifies pain. Strive, mankind, though strife endure through endless obstruction, Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain a fall! ΙΟ Baffled for ever yet never so baffled but, e'en in the baffling, When Man's strength proves weak, checked in the body or soul Whatsoever the medium, flesh or essence, Ixion's Made for a purpose of hate, - clothing the entity Thou, - Medium whence that entity strives for the Not-Thou beyond it, Fire elemental, free, frame unencumbered, the All, Never so baffled but when, on the verge of an alien existence, Heartened to press, by pangs burst to the infinite Pure, Nothing is reached but the ancient weakness still that arrests strength, Circumambient still, still the poor hu man array, Pride and revenge and hate and crueltyall it has burst through, Thought to escape, fresh formed, found in the fashion it fled, Never so baffled but -- when Man pays the price of endeavour, Thunderstruck, downthrust, Tartaros doomed to the wheel, Then, ay, then, from the tears and sweat and blood of his torment, E'en from the triumph of Hell, up let him look and rejoice! What is the influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture Pain and despair's murk mists blends in a rainbow of hope? What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage tho' it baffle? 20 Back must I fall, confess "Ever the weakness I fled"? Throughout the night-watch, roused themselves and spoke No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-One to the other: "Ere death's touch be- 5a unobstructed! Zeus was Zeus - not Man: wrecked by his weakness, I whirl. Out of the wreck I rise -- - past Zeus to the Potency o'er him! I to have hailed him my friend! to have clasped her Pallid birth of my pain, my love! where light, where light is, aspiring Thither I rise, whilst thou - Zeus, keep the godship and sink! JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH. [Rabbi Yehudah Hannasi, otherwise Jochanan (John) Hakkadosh, was born in the second Christian century. Hakkadosh means holy.] "THIS now, this other story makes amends And justifies our Mishna," quoth the Jew Aforesaid. "Tell it, learnedest of friends!" numb "The hour of thine approximate release From fleshly bondage soul hath found obstruct? Calmly envisagest the sure increase "Of knowledge? Eden's tree must hold unplucked Some apple, sure, has never tried thy tooth, Juicy with sapience thou hast sought, not sucked? "Say, does age acquiesce in vanished youth? Still towers thy purity above as erst Our pleasant follies? Be thy last word truth!" "Parts in presentment failing, cries invade The world's ear- 'Ah, the Past, the pearlgift thrown To hogs, time's opportunity we made "So light of, only recognised when flown! 40 Had we been wise!') in fine, I — wise enough, What profit brings me wisdom never shown "Just when its showing would from each rebuff Shelter weak virtue, threaten back to bounds Encroaching vice, tread smooth each track too rough 10 The Rabbi groaned; then, grimly, "Last"For youth's unsteady footstep, climb the 20 30 as first The truth speak I in boyhood who began Striving to live an angel, and, amerced "For such presumption, die now hardly "Armour to arm me, but have never fought With sword and spear, nor tried to manage shield, Proving arms' use, as well-trained warrior ought. "Only a sling and pebbles can I wield!' So he while 1, contrariwse, 'No trick Of weapon helpful on the battle-field "Comes unfamiliar to my theoric: But, bid me put in practice what I know, Give me a sword it stings like Moses' stick, "A serpent I let drop apace.' E'en so, I, able to comport me at each stage Of human life as never here below "Man played his part, since mine the heritage Of wisdom carried to that perfect pitch, Ye rightly praise,-I, therefore, who, thus sage, "Could sure act man triumphantly, enrich Life's annals with example how I played Lover, Bard, Soldier, Statist, (all of which rounds Of life's long ladder, one by slippery one, Yet make no stumble? Me hard fate confounds "With that same crowd of wailers I outrun By promising to teach another cry 50 Of more hilarious mood than theirs, the |