style="font-size:15px;"> Pr. Thy way along the coastLies till it southward turn, when thou shalt seek
Where wide on Strymon's plain the hindered flood{37} Spreads like a lake; thy course to his oppose 1140 And face him to the mountain whence he comes: Which doubled, Thrace receives thee: barbarous names Of mountain, town and river, and a people Strange to thine eyes and ears, the Agathyrsi, Of pictured skins, who owe no marriage law, And o'er whose gay-spun garments sprent with gold Their hanging hair is blue. Their torrent swim That measures Europe in two parts, and go Eastward along the sea, to mount the lands Beyond man's dwelling, and the rising steeps 1150 That face the sun untrodden and unnamed.— Know to earth's verge remote thou then art come, The Scythian tract and wilderness forlorn, Through whose rude rocks and frosty silences No path shall guide thee then, nor my words now. There as thou toilest o'er the treacherous snows, A sound then thou shall hear to stop thy breath, And prick thy trembling ears; a far-off cry, Whose throat seems the white mountain and its passion The woe of earth. Flee not, nor turn not back: 1160 Let thine ears drink and guide thine eyes to see That sight whose terrors shall assuage thy terror, Whose pain shall kill thy pain. Stretched on the rock, Naked to scorching sun, to pinching frost, To wind and storm and beaks of wingèd fiends From year to year he lies. Refrain to ask His name and crime—nay, haply when thou see him Thou wilt remember—'tis thy tyrant's foe, Man's friend, who pays his chosen penalty. Draw near, my child, for he will know thy need, 1170 And point from land to land thy further path.
Chorus.
O miserable man, hear now the worst.
O weak and tearful race,{38}
Born to unhappiness, see now thy cause
Doomed and accurst!
It surely were enough, the bad and good
Together mingled, against chance and ill
To strive, and prospering by turns,
Now these, now those, now folly and now skill,
Alike by means well understood 1180
Or 'gainst all likelihood;
Loveliness slaving to the unlovely will
That overrides the right and laughs at law.
But always all in awe
And imminent dread:
Because there is no mischief thought or said,
Imaginable or unguessed,
But it may come to be; nor home of rest,
Nor hour secure: but anywhere,
At any moment; in the air, 1190
Or on the earth or sea,
Or in the fair
And tender body itself it lurks, creeps in,
Or seizes suddenly,
Torturing, burning, withering, devouring,
Shaking, destroying; till tormented life
Sides with the slayer, not to be,
And from the cruel strife
Falls to fate overpowering.
Or if some patient heart, 1200
In toilsome steps of duty tread apart,
Thinking to win her peace within herself,
And thus awhile succeed:
She must see others bleed,
At others' misery moan,
And learn the common suffering is her own,
From which it is no freedom to be freed:{39}
Nay, Nature, her best nurse,
Is tender but to breed a finer sense,
Which she may easier wound, with smart the worse 1210
And torture more intense.
And no strength for thee but the thought of duty,
Nor any solace but the love of beauty.
O Right's toil unrewarded!
O Love's prize unaccorded!
I say this might suffice,
O tearful and unstable
And miserable man,
Were't but from day to day
Thy miserable lot, 1220
This might suffice, I say,
To term thee miserable.
But thou of all thine ills too must take thought,
Must grow familiar till no curse astound thee,
With tears recall the past,
With tears the times forecast;
With tears, with tears thou hast
The scapeless net spread in thy sight around thee.
How then support thy fate,
O miserable man, if this befall, 1230
That he who loves thee and would aid thee, daring
To raise an arm for thy deliverance,
Must for his courage suffer worse than all?
In. Bravest deliverer, for thy prophecy
Has torn the veil which hid thee from my eyes,
If thyself art that spirit, of whom some things
Were darkly spoken—nor can I doubt thou art,
Being that the heaven its fire withholds not from thee
Nor time his secrets—tell me now thy name,
That I may praise thee rightly; and my late 1240{40} Unwitting words pardon thou, and these who still In blinded wonder kneel not to thy love. Pr. Speak not of love. See, I am moved with hate, And fiercest anger, which will sometimes spur The heart to extremity, till it forget That there is any joy save furious war. Nay, were there now another deed to do, Which more could hurt our enemy than this, Which here I stand to venture, here would I leave thee Conspiring at his altar, and fly off 1250 To plunge the branding terror in his soul. But now the rising passion of my will Already jars his reaching sense, already From heaven he bids his minion Hermes forth To bring his only rebel to his feet. Therefore no more delay, the time is short. In. I take, I take. 'Tis but for thee to give. Pr. O heavenly fire, life's life, the eye of day, Whose nimble waves upon the starry
