Classic Poem

FROM APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, B.III.V.743 .

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Now rising shades a solemn gloom display
O'er the wide earth, and o'er th' ethereal way;
All night the sailor marks the Northern Team,
And golden circlet of Orion's beam;
A deep repose the weary wand'rer shares,
And the faint watchman sleeps away his cares;
E'en the fond mother, while all breathless lies
Her child of love, in slumber seals her eyes:
No found of village-dog, no noise, invades
The death-like silence of the midnight shades.
Alone Medea wakes; to love a prey,
Restless she rolls, and groans the night away.
Now the fire-breathing bulls command her cares;
She thinks on Jason, and for Jason fears:
In sad review on horrors horrors rise;
Quick beats her heart; from thought to thought she flies:
As from replenish'd urns with dubious ray
The sunbeams dancing from the surface play,
Now here now there the trembling radiance falls,
Alternate flashing round th'illumin'd walls;
Thus flutt'ring bounds the trembling virgin's blood,
And from her shining eyes descends a flood.
Now raving with resistless flames she glows,
Now sick with love, she melts with softer woes:
The tyrant god, of ev'ry thought possest,
Beats in each pulse, and stings and rack her breast.
Now she resolves the magic to betray
To tame the bulls, now yield him up a prey.
Again the drugs disdaining to supply,
She loathes the light, and meditates to die:
Anon repelling with a brave disdain
The coward thought, she nourishes the pain.
Thus tost, retost, with furious storms of cares
On the cold ground she rolls, and thus with tears:
" Ah me! where'er I turn before my eyes
" A dreadful view: on sorrows sorrows rise!
" Toss'd in a giddy whirl of strong desire,
" I glow, I burn, yet bless the pleasing fire!
" O had this spirit from its prison fled,
" By Dian sent to wander with the dead,
" Ere the proud Grecians view'd the Colchian skies,
" Ere Jason, lovely Jason! met these eyes.
" Hell gave a shining mischief to our coast;
" Medea saw him, and Medea's lost. —
" But why these sorrows? if the pow'rs on high
" His death decree, die, wretched Jason! die.
" Shall I elude my fire! my art betray?
" Ah me! what words shall purge the guilt away?
" But could I yield — O whither must I run
" To find the man — whom virtue bids me shun?
" Shall I, all lost to shame, to Jason fly?
" And yet I must — if Jason bleeds I die!
" Then, Shame! farewel: adieu for ever, Fame!
" Hail, black Disgrace! be fam'd for guilt my name!
" Live, Jason! live; enjoy the vital air;
" Live thro' my aid, and fly where winds can bear!
" But when he flies, ye Poisons! lend your pow'rs!
" That day Medea treads th' infernal shores!
" Then, wretched maid! thy lot is endless shame;
" Then the proud dames of Colchis blast thy name:
" I hear them cry — " The false Medea's dead
" Thro' guilty passion for a stranger's bed;
" Medea, careless of her virgin fame,
" Preferr'd a stranger to a father's name!"
" O may I rather yield this vital breath
" Than bear that base dishonour, worse than death! "
Thus wailed the fair, and seized with horrid joy
Drugs foes to life, and potent to destroy;
A magazine of death! Again she pours
From her swoln eye-balls tears in shining show'rs;
With grief infatiate, and with trembling hands,
All comfortless, the cask of death expands:
A sudden fear her lab'ring soul invades,
Struck with the horrors of th' infernal shades:
She stands deep-musing with a faded brow,
Absorpt in thought, a monument of woe!
While all the comforts that on life attend,
The cheerful converse and the faithful friend,
By thought deep-imag'd in her bosom play,
Endearing life and charm despair away.
Th' all-cheering suns with sweeter light arise,
And ev'ry object brightens to her eyes:
Then from her hand the baneful drugs she throws,
Consents to live, recover'd from her woes;
Resolved the magic virtue to betray,
She waits the dawn, and calls the lazy day.
Time seems to stand, or backward drive his wheels;
The hours she chides, and eyes the eastern hills.
At length the dawn with orient beams appears,
The shades disperse; and man awakes to cares.
Studious to please, her graceful length of hair
With art she binds, that wanton'd with the air;
From her soft cheek she wipes the tear away,
And bids keen lightnings from her eyes to play;
From limb to limb refreshing unguents pours,
Unguents that breathe of heaven in copious show'rs.
Her robe she next assumes; bright clasps of gold
Close to the less'ning waist the robe infold;
Down from her swelling loins the rest unbound,
Floats in rich waves redundant o'er the ground:
Last, with a shining veil her cheeks she shades,
Then swimming smooth along magnificently treads.
Thus forward moves the fairest of her kind,
Blind to the future, to the present blind.
Twelve maids, attendants on her virgin bow'r,
Alike unconscous of the bridal hour,
Join to the car the mules, dire rites to pay;
To Hecate's black fane she bends her way:
A juice she bears whose magic virtue tames
(Thro' fell Persephone) the rage of flames;
It gives the hero, strong in matchless might,
To stand secure of harms in mortal fight;
It mocks the sword; the sword without a wound
Leaps as from marble shiver'd to the ground:
She mounts the car; nor rode the nymph alone;
On either side two lovely damsels shone:
Her hand with skill th' embroider'd rein controls,
Back fly the streets as swift the chariot rolls.
Along the wheel-worn road they hold their way,
The domes retreat, the sinking tow'rs decay.
Bare to the knee succinct a damsel train
Behind attends, and glitters tow'rd the plain.
As when her limbs divine Diana laves
In fair Parnethius, or th' Amnesian waves,
Sublime in royal state the bounding roes
Whirl her bright car along the mountain brows,
Swift to her fane, in pomp the goddess moves,
The nymphs attend that haunt the shady groves,
Th' Amnesian fount or silver-streaming rills,
Nymphs of the vales or Oreads of the hills,
The fawning beasts before the goddess play,
Or trembling, savage adoration pay;
Thus on her car sublime the nymph appears,
The crowd falls back, and as she moves reveres:
Swift to the fane aloft her course she bends,
The fane she reaches, and to earth descends;
Then to her train — " Ah me! I fear we stray,
" Misled by Folly to this lonely way!
" Alas! should Jason with his Greeks appear,
" Where should we fly? I fear, alas! I fear!
" No more the Colchian youths and virgin train
" Haunt the cool shade, or tread in dance the plain.
" But since alone — with sports beguile the hours;
" Come, chaunt the song, or pluck the blooming flow'rs;
" Pluck ev'ry sweet to deck your virrgin bow'rs! "
Then warbling soft she lifts her heavenly voice,
But sick with mighty love, the song is noise:
She hears from ev'ry note a discord rise,
Till, pausing, on her tongue the music dies:
She hates each object, ev'ry face offends
In ev'ry wish her soul to Jason sends;
With sharpen'd eyes the distant lawn explores,
To find the object whom her soul adores:
At ev'ry whisper of the passing air
She starts, she turns, and hopes her Jason there.
Again she fondly looks, nor looks in vain;
He comes, her Jason shines along the plain!
As when, emerging from the wat'ry way,
Refulgent Sirius lifts his golden ray,
He shines terrific, for his burning breath
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death;
Such to the nymph approaching Jason shows,
Bright author of unutterable woes!
Before her eyes a swimming darkness spread,
Her flush'd cheek glow'd, her very heart was dead;
No more her knees their wonted office knew,
Fix'd without motion, as to earth she grew,
Her train recedes; the meeting lovers gaze
In silent wonder and in still amaze:
As two fair cedars on the mountain's brow,
Pride of the groves! with roots adjoining grow,
Erect and motionless the stately trees
A while remain, while sleeps each fanning breeze,
Till from th'Æolian caves a blast unbound
Bends their proud tops, and bids their boughs refound;
Thus gazing they, till by the breath of love
Strongly at length inspir'd, they speak, they move;
With smiles the lovesick virgin he survey'd,
And fondly thus addressed the blooming maid:
" Dismiss, my fair, my love, thy virgin fear;
" 'Tis Jason speaks, no enemy is here.
" Man, haughty man, is of obdurate kind;
" But Jason bears no proud inhuman mind,
" By gentlest manners, softest arts, refin'd.
" Whom wouldst thou fly? Stay, lovely virgin, stay!
" Speak ev'ry thought; far hence be fears away.
" Speak, and be truth in ev'ry accent found!
" Dread to deceive; we tread on hallow'd ground.
" By the stern pow'r who guards this sacred place,
" By the illustrious authors of thy race;
" By Jove, to whom the stranger's cause belongs,
" To whom the suppliant, and who feels their wrongs;
" O guard me, save me, in the needful hour!
" Without thy aid, thy Jason is no more;
" To thee a suppliant, in distress I bend,
" To thee a stranger, and who wants a friend!
" Then, when between us seas and mountains rise,
" Medea's name shall sound in distant skies;
" All Greece to thee shall owe her heroes' fates,
" And bless Medea thro' her hundred states:
" The mother and the wife, who now in vain
" Roll their sad eyes fast-streaming o'er the main,
" Shall stay their tears; the mother, and the wife,
" Shall bless thee for a son's or husband's life!
" Fair Ariadne, sprung from Minos' bed,
" Sav'd the brave Theseus, and with Theseus fled;
" Forsook her father, and her native plain,
" And stemm'd the tumults of the surging main;
" Yet the stern sire relented, and forgave
" The maid, whose only crime it was to save;
" E'en the just gods forgave: and now on high
" A star she shines, and beautifies the sky.
" What blessings then shall righteous heaven decree
" For all our heroes sav'd, and sav'd by thee?
" Heaven gave thee not to kill, so soft an air,
" And Cruelty sure never looked so fair! "
He ceas'd; but left so charming on her ear
His voice, that list'ning still she seem'd to hear:
Her eye to earth she bends with modest grace,
And heaven in smiles is open'd in her face:
A glance she steals, but rosy blushes spread
O'er her fair cheek, and then she drops her head:
A thousand words at once to speak she tries
In vain — but speaks a thousand with her eyes.
Trembling the shining casket she expands,
Then gives the magic virtue to his hands;
And had the power been granted to convey
Her heart — had given her very heart away.