Classic Poem

Faun . It is the Centaur's voice I hear.
The creeper tresses toss with fear,
Then part before a pow'rful hand.
See, see, O see the Centaur stand
With ruggid head erect and proud,
Whose rounded mouth yet chants aloud
The Joy of Mind fulfilled in Force:
Glory of Man, glory of Horse.

Hail thou, the sov'reign of the hill!
Hail thou, upon whose locks distil
Fresh dews when mid majestic night
Thou pacest, hid, along the height.
Thine are the solitudes of snow
Between bare peaks, thy hooves also
Are heard within the dusk defile
Where Titans of a sunless while
Fashioned huge sphinxes in whose eyes
The Kite now skulks or, girding, cries.
Thine, too, the sole and sinking pine
Burned by the sunset — ay, and thine
The ledges whence a sudden sift
Of snow sighs downward, thine the swift
Uproar of avalanche and all
The mountain echoes. To thee call,
When the snow melts and there are seen
Crocuses blazing mid the green
Of the dewed grass, the Sylvan folk:
The Dryads from the leafless oak
Or budded elder, that at length
Thou mayst release them by the strength
Of thy tough fingers; 'tis on thee
The nymphs cry should the runnels be
Exhausted of the midsummer sun,
Sith, stamping, thou canst make to run
The hoarded waters of the wold.
And among men thou art of old
Thought's emblem: for to thee belong
All gifts of deep, wise, epic song.
Hail, then, whom Earth and mankind hails.
And Ocean, whose high-spouting whales
And dripping serpents, that arise
Swinging their gold crests to the skies
To drink in all thy bold descant
Hail, though they cannot view thee chant,
As I who now behold in sooth
Thy lighted eyes and singing mouth.

O grape-hung locks! glorious face,
Capacious frame, sinewy grace
Of arm that lifts a skully lyre
Whose dithyramb whirls ever higher!
Deep breast-bone, belly, curved thews —
Such as the tussling oak doth use
Upon the crumbled scarp to grip —
Striking from trunk down through the hip
Into the stallion's massive shoulders
Glossy as moonlit ice-bound boulders!
Stiff, stalwart forelegs, heavy hoof.
Yet fleeter far on heights aloof
Than ev'n such doubled hares as race
Blue 'thwart dim fells, or, speck in space,
Osprey, gale-swept across the tides!
Thy man's trunk glisters; on thy sides
A soft and silver shagginess,
Inviting slim hands to caress,
Hangs dewy —

Centaur . Faun, Faun, art thou near?
Faun . Behold me stand, proud Centaur, here
Upon the bluff where 'neath me lies
The sunned pool of the precipice.
Centaur . Faun, in my veins the blood 'gins race,
The new sun sweats upon my face,
Dazzles my pupils, golden swims
Over my flushed and fervid limbs.
I feel in me my spirit rise
Griffon-like flogging up tall skies.
Now is the Morning of the World,
And through my heart a flood is hurled
Of onerous joyance, of desire
To clutch the sun and spill its fire
Down heaven's blue bulwarks! to snatch life
And drain its lusty full in strife
Of all my body with the bent
Wrestle of every element:
Close with the whirlwind, front the tide
And turn its moony press aside.

But in the world I cannot find
A match in strength, a foe in mind....
At dawn, at eve the waters burn;
All night the constellations turn
Round the dark pole, and none knows why...
None seeks to know save only I
And thou, O Faun. We are alone....
Yet sometimes, when the wind is gone
And all below shines sunned and still,
I feel depart from me the will
Merely to know, to know and wait:
I would do more: I would create.
Though what I know not; but I would
Spend this my mind and hardihood.
Yet find no means save physic force: —
Sing as a man, stride as a horse.
Then stride I? Swift I overcome
The fleetest. Sing I? All are dumb.
Natheless my heart demands in grief
Ardour, endurance and relief;
Asks, but receives not.

Faun . Shall not I
Echo thy pain, whom Fates deny
Answer to thought, — as they to thee
The lust-of-action's fill? But we
Accept too much, O Sire. 'Twere best,
Though idly, to fulfil our zest.

Four leagues this canyon runs between
Us twain or ever there is seen
The arch of rock whose massy grace
Bridges yon gap of golden space.
Deignest thou, then, to race with me
From such tall eyries to the sea,
If even now I upward leap?
Centaur . Leap then! I catch thee e'er the steep
Subsides in woodland or in down