Lycus The Centaur.

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur.

Who hath ever been lured and bound by a spell

To wander, fore-doomed, in that circle of hell

Where Witchery works with her will like a god,

Works more than the wonders of time at a nod, -

At a word, - at a touch, - at a flash of the eye,

But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie,

Things born of a wish - to endure for a thought,

Or last for long ages - to vanish to nought,

Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given

The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven,

And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether

They kept the world's birthday and brighten'd together!

For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded

That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded,

The face I might dote on, should live out the lease

Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease:

And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream

To another - each horrid, - and drank of the stream

Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd

Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught, -

Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up

When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes in the cup.

And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear

That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear;

For once, at my suppering, I plucked in the dusk

An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk;

But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore,

And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core;

And once - only once - for the love of its blush,

I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush

On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright,

While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight;

And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note,

That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat,

As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand

Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd!

There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee,

As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree, -

Oh! for innocent death, - and to suddenly win it,

I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it;

I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink,

Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink;

I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height,

But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight;

I ran at my fears - they were fears and no more,

For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar,

But moan'd - all their brutalized flesh could not smother

The horrible truth, - we were kin to each other!

They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief,

All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief:

The leopard was there, - baby-mild in its feature;

And the tiger, black-barr'd, with the gaze of a creature

That knew gentle pity; the bristle-back'd boar,

His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore;

And the laughing hyena - but laughing no more;

And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise

Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes;

The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine

Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine;

And the elephant stately, with more than its reason,

How thoughtful in sadness! but this is no season

To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad

To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load.

There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came,

That hung down their heads with a human-like shame;

The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear

Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair;

And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust,

Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust;

While all groan'd their groans into one at their lot,

As I brought them the image of what they were not.

Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking

Through vile brutal organs - low tremulous croaking:

Cries swallow'd abruptly - deep animal tones

Attuned to strange passion, and full-utter'd groans;

All shuddering weaken, till hush'd in a pause

Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yawning jaws;

And I guessed that those horrors were meant to tell o'er

The tale of their woes; but the silence told more,

That writhed on their tongues; and I knelt on the sod,

And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring god,

For the sad congregation of supplicants there,

That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer;

And I ceased, and they utter'd a moaning so deep,

That I wept for my heart-ease, - but they could not weep,

And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry,

At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye.

Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress,

I caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress,

Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm,

And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm

Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate

From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate;

So they passively bow'd - save the serpent, that leapt

To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept

In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd

My lips in rash love, - then drew backward, and glister'd

Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright,

Dropt down, but swift started away from my sight!

This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot,

Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not,

When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces,

That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places,

And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet,

And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet:

But I fled - though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled

With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled, -

Though they call'd - and perchance but to ask, had I seen

Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been:

But I stayed not to hear, lest the story should hold

Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told,

Might translate me in flesh to a brute; and I dreaded

To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded

With some pity, - and love in that pity perchance -

To a thing not all lovely; for once at glance,

Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder

That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under

The long fenny grass, - with so lovely a breast,

Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest?

So I roamed in that circle of horrors, and Fear

Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near

Cluster'd trees for their gloom - not to shelter from heat -

But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet;

And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place

Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face,

In the horrible likeness of demons (that none

Could see, like invisible flames in the sun);

But grew to one monster that seized on the light,

Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night;

Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south;

Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth

Engenders of slime in the land of the pest,

Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West,

Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein

Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin,

Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight

Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light;

I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close,

When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes,

That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws,

With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws,

And whirls of long tails: - I have seen the quick flutter

Of fragments dissevered, - and necks stretch'd to utter

Long screamings of pain, - the swift motion of blows,

And wrestling of arms - to the flight at the close,

When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings,

And flew on the whirlwind that follow'd their wings.

Thus they fled - not forgotten - but often to grow

Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro

In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen

The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean

I knew not, nor whether the love I had won

Was of heaven or hell - till one day in the sun,

In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing

Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling

On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky,

Half-seen and half-dream'd in the soul of his eye.

And when in my musings I gazed on the stream,

In motionless trances of thought, there would seem

A face like that face, looking upward through mine:

With his eyes full of love, and the dim-drownd shine

Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue

Serene: - there I stood for long hours but to view

Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted

Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted

Between; but the fish knew that presence, and plied

Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside.

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things

That once had been wonders - the fishes with wings,

And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up

From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup,

And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam,

Slow winding along like a tide in the stream.

Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought

Held me dear in the pearl of her eye - and I brought

My wish to that fancy; and often I dash'd

My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd

The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink,

Chill'd by watery fears, how that beauty might sink

With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me

With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me

In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear,

Like a spider-caught bee, - and in aid of that fear

Came the tardy remembrance - Oh falsest of men!

Why was not that beauty remember'd till then?

My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run

Into mine - like a drop - that our fate might be one,

That now, even now, - may-be, - clasp'd in a dream,

That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream,

And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother

On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another!

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind,

Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind

On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt

To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept

With my brow in the reeds; and the reeds to my ear

Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear,

Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one

That loved me, - but oh to fly from her, and shun

Her love like a pest - though her love was as true

To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue;

For why should I love her with love that would bring

All misfortune, like hate, on so joyous a thing?

Because of her rival, - even Her whose witch-face

I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place

To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank,

Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank;

Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail

To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale

Of Scylla, - and Picus, imprison'd to speak

His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak.

Then they ceased - I had heard as the voice of my star

That told me the truth of my fortunes - thus far

I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush

Of deep meditation, - when lo! a light crush

Of the reeds, and I turn'd and look'd round in the night

Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipp'd of the light

Narrow-winking, the realized nymph of the stream,

Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam

Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing

Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing

In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roll'd

Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold,

Sun-spangled, gold-broider'd, and fled far behind,

Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined

In the reeds, and I hunger'd to see her unseal

The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal

The blue that was in them; - they oped and she raised

Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed

With her eyes on my eyes; but their color and shine

Was of that which they look'd on, and mostly of mine -

For she loved me, - except when she blush'd, and they sank,

Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank,

Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me

How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me

Would wing through the sun till she fainted away

Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay

In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes

In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies.

But now they were heal'd, - O my heart, it still dances

When I think of the charm of her changeable glances,

And my image how small when it sank in the deep

Of her eyes where her soul was, - Alas! now they weep,

And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes

Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her sighs

Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf

She has pluck'd with her tresses? Who listens her grief

Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet

Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat

Them together? Ah! surely her flowers float adown

To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown

For need of her mercy, - even he whose twin-brother

Will miss him forever; and the sorrowful mother

Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss

And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is,

Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain

We loved, - how we loved! - for I thought not again

Of the woes that were whisper'd like fears in that place

If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face,

Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drown'd

For my absence, - her arms were the arms that sought round

And claspt me to nought; for I gazed and became

Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name

For two loves, and call'd ever on 'gle, sweet maid

Of the sky-loving waters, - and was not afraid

Of the sight of her skin; - for it never could be;

Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me!

Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten'd space,

Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face

Had been with me for joy, - when she told me indeed

Her love was self-task'd with a work that would need

Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity

Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty,

Of one with warm lips that should love her, and love her

When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over.

So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested

My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested

Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep

Of dreams, - but their meaning was hidden too deep

To be read what their woe was; - but still it was woe

That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro

In that river of night; - and the gaze of their eyes

Was sad, - and the bend of their brows, - and their cries

Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears

Travell'd down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears

Awaked me, and lo! I was couch'd in a bower,

The growth of long summers rear'd up in an hour!

Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly

From this magic, but could not, because that my eye

Grew love-idle among the rich blooms; and the earth

Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth

Of some bird was above me, - who, even in fear,

Would startle the thrush? and methought there drew near

A form as of 'gle, - but it was not the face

Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that place,

Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death,

Which I fear'd, and yet fled not, for want of my breath.

There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised

From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed,

Her spite - and her countenance changed with her mind

As she plann'd how to thrall me with beauty, and bind

My soul to her charms, - and her long tresses play'd

From shade into shine and from shine into shade,

Like a day in mid-autumn, - first fair, O how fair!

With long snaky locks of the adder-black hair

That clung round her neck, - those dark locks that I prize,

For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes

Of that fathomless hue, - but they changed as they roll'd,

And brighten'd, and suddenly blazed into gold

That she comb'd into flames, and the locks that fell down

Turn'd dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown,

Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild,

That innocence wears when she is but a child;

And her eyes, - Oh I ne'er had been witched with their shine,

Had they been any other, my 'gle, than thine!

Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I madden'd

In the full of their light, - but I sadden'd and sadden'd

The deeper I look'd, - till I sank on the snow

Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe,

And answer'd its throb with the shudder of fears,

And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears,

And strain'd her white arms with the still languid weight

Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate

That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame

To hide me from her the true 'gle - that came

With the words on her lips the false witch had fore-given

To make me immortal - for now I was even

At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush

Of world-sounds in my ears to cry welcome, and rush

With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river.

Oh, would it had flown from my body forever,

Ere I listen'd those words, when I felt with a start,

The life-blood rush back in one throb to my heart,

And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell

Had perished in horror - and heard the farewell

Of that voice that was drown'd in the dash of the stream!

How fain had I follow'd, and plunged with that scream

Into death, but my being indignantly lagg'd

Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragg'd

Behind me: - O Circe! O mother of spite!

Speak the last of that curse! and imprison me quite

In the husk of a brute, - that no pity may name

The man that I was, - that no kindred may claim -

"The monster I am! Let me utterly be

Brute-buried, and Nature's dishonor with me

Uninscribed!" - But she listen'd my prayer, that was praise

To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to gaze

On the river for love, - and perchance she would make

In pity a maid without eyes for my sake,

And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask'd of the wave,

What monster I was, and it trembled and gave

The true shape of my grief, and I turn'd with my face

From all waters forever, and fled through that place,

Till with horror more strong than all magic I pass'd

Its bounds, and the world was before me at last.

There I wander'd in sorrow, and shunned the abodes

Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gods,

But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun

On the cities, where man was a million, not one;

And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascending,

That show'd where the hearts of many were blending,

And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came

From the trumpets that gather'd whole bands in one fame

As a chorus of man, - and they stream'd from the gates

Like a dusky libation poured out to the Fates.

But at times there were gentler processions of peace

That I watch'd with my soul in my eyes till their cease,

There were women! there men! but to me a third sex

I saw them all dots - yet I loved them as specks:

And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes

I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise

Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten

By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten!

Oh, I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother

Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother

Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep

Sang dreams in its ear of its manhood, while deep

In a thicket of willows I gazed o'er the brooks

That murmur'd between us and kiss'd them with looks;

But the willows unbosom'd their secret, and never

I return'd to a spot I had startled forever,

Though I oft long'd to know, but could ask it of none,

Was the mother still fair, and how big was her son?

For the haunters of fields they all shunn'd me by flight;

The men in their horror, the women in fright;

None ever remain'd save a child once that sported

Among the wild bluebells, and playfully courted

The breeze; and beside him a speckled snake lay

Tight strangled, because it had hiss'd him away

From the flower at his finger; he rose and drew near

Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear,

But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright

To grow to large manhood of merciful might.

He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel,

The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel,

And question'd my face with wide eyes; but when under

My lids he saw tears, - for I wept at his wonder,

He stroked me, and utter'd such kindliness then,

That the once love of women, the friendship of men

In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss

On my heart in its desolate day such as this!

And I yearn'd at his cheeks in my love, and down bent,

And lifted him up in my arms with intent

To kiss him, - but he cruel-kindly, alas!

Held out to my lips a pluck'd handful of grass!

Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled

The stone he indignantly hurl'd at my head,

That dissever'd my ear, - but I felt not, whose fate

Was to meet more distress in his love that his hate!

Thus I wander'd, companion'd of grief and forlorn

Till I wish'd for that land where my being was born

But what was that land with its love, where my home

Was self-shut against me; for why should I come

Like an after-distress to my gray-bearded father,

With a blight to the last of his sight? - let him rather

Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn

Where I was not, and still in fond memory turn

To his son even such as he left him. Oh, how

Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but now

Like Gods to my humbled estate? - or how bear

The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the care

Of my hands? Then I turn'd me self-banish'd, and came

Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same

As myself. I have heard how they met by a stream

In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream

That made wretches of many, as she roll'd her wild eyes

Against heaven, and so vanish'd. - The gentle and wise

Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others their ill

In the mirth of mankind where they mingle them still.