Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Atual Anterior: The Rose (Summer) Seguinte: The Marigold (Winter)
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THE WATER-REEDS
“There are in this loud stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of th’ everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
Plying their daily task with busier feet,
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.”
Christian Year.
I HAVE always from childhood entertained a great fancy for finding parables in Nature. It has ever been my special delight to frame for myself stories and allegories out of the voiceless things around me, and to discover in the silent insensate life of flower, stream, or sea, lively images of the mysteries of God’s spiritual kingdom. In such a mood have I sought to pourtray, however faintly, the gentle life of temperance and of love severally typified by the Crocus and the Rose. For in the beautiful garden of the Rainbow, (of which we mortals catch a glimpse now and then, when the angels open the bright gates of heaven to Let out the sunshine after a storm,) – in that fair Paradise of flowers, all the hues of our earthly blossoms bear part, and we see wheel within wheel of shining colours, wondrously blent into one another, and brighter far than any in meadow or garden below. And who, looking upward from the fair-faced flowers of earth to the more glorious dyes of the rainbow, can help reflecting on the allegory thus presented of the gentle and of the divine life? Here in hidden and in high places alike, the saints of God display to Him their fair lives, and give out their sweet fragrance of good deeds; in heaven, eternally united, they encircle the throne of the Most Holy, fairer and brighter than hen on earth, yet each differing from other as the stars in glory; every saint crowned through his own special grace, this one through patience, that through ardent love, another through faith or Christian valour. And in this heavenly garden my golden crocus has its place with the rest, side by side with the clear steadfast green of the fourth circle, – the green that speaks of refreshment and of strength, the hope of faithful souls. Come, then, with me to the brook which winds round the base of yonder bush-grown hill; there on the gnarled trunk of a fallen oak,
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sheltered from the somewhat too rough zephyrs of early autumn, which indeed are apt at times to be rude play-fellows, we will sit together and interpret the parable of the tall green water-reeds at our feet.
Yes, of the Water-reeds! Be sure that these slender graceful fairy-wands, favourites alike of the old mythologists and of the modern poets, have a story to tell and a moral to point us at least as worthy our interest as those we have heard already!
Here, as I lean back at my ease against this mossy elm, and watch the quivering reeds and the great bull-rushes tossing their heads in the wind, I picture to myself the ghostly shape of their representative Genius. I see the Spirit of the Water-rushes, floating above the shadowy stream like a ray of sunlight, and her aërial garments, as they curl to and fro with the breeze, seem rhythmical in their motion as though swayed by the pulse of some celestial music which mortals cannot hear. In her bosom she carries the bright flame of a divine lamp, whose clear shining illumines her steadfast eyes, so that they bear in their depths an expression of singular strength and rapture, as if the holy fire had concentrated within them all its power and vitality. And in the face of the fair spectre, I see the waiting, abstracted look which painters give to the countenance of S. Cecilia, the listening look of one who catches afar of the holy melodies of heaven.
Then, while yet I gaze upon her with wonder, a voice like the plaintive long-drawn sigh of the wind among the rushes of the stream issues from the phantom’s nebulous lips. Presently it swells into a strong murmuring sound, such as one hears upon the rivers at sunset, when the evening gales are shaking the tall reeds of the shallows, and methinks I see the cloudy veil upon the head of the Spirit, lifted as though by an airy breath. Beneath its folds l perceive a wreath of pliant water-grasses, drooping their green spear-like blades over her neck, and about the long uncurled hair that seems to hang round her as though dank and heavy with moisture.
“I am,” says the beautiful eidolon, “the Genius of the green water-reeds, under the figure of which the seers of old and new times have discovered a true emblem of Music. But the music of the soul upon earth, which to mortal sense is inaudible. is the spiritual harmony of Patience, whereof also the life of the water-reeds is a continual type. For as the storms that sweep across them, and the rains that beat upon their steadfast heads, serve but to elicit from them sweet cadences, and can neither tear them from their place, nor lay bare their roots which are covered by the impregnable waters, so is it with the soul that abides in patience. There
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is no tempest of adversity, no rain of tribulation that shall be able to overcome the patient man; the fiercer the assaults of the world, the sweeter and the louder is the melody within his heart And because the principle of that divine music is Patience, the strong sustaining grace whereby all the virtues are established and fortified, the reeds also, which even in angry weather emit unceasingly an excellent harmony, are a symbol of the soul’s continual music, pervading the life of those who love God, and who being rooted and grounded securely in His love, are safe evermore from the jars of this world’s confusion and discord. Wherefore it is written, that’ through patience the saints shall possess their souls.’ And the lamp of God, whose fire I bear beneath my vestment, is the holy spirit of Fortitude, whereof the glory is like that of the emerald surrounding the heavenly throne. And forasmuch as the flowers of earth are always enshrined in leaves of green, let that be a token to you that every Christian grace must in like manner be strengthened and set about with Patience, since by means of patience only can any virtue endure and be preserved. It suffices not to strike now and then some stray note, there must be a sequence and continuation of sweet sounds to form a melody, nor must those who would make music in their hearts to the Lord be fain to weary in well-doing. But let not such be fearful or dismayed, for the last chord of their symphony shall be sounded in the full light of the Perfect Day, when there shall no more be any need of patience, but instead thereof a new song shall be sung in the temple of the Lord, and they who have waited for Him shall receive their heart’s desire.
“Listen, daughter of earth, while I recount to you my history, and learn from it what patience and fortitude were once able to accomplish even for men of ruder c reeds and rougher times than yours. Nor marvel, while l speak, that my story tells of days so far remote. I am of ancient birth and noble lineage; my ancestors, indeed, were the reeds of whose green hollow stems the river-god first made the musical Syrinx, and the earliest remembrances of my life are all inwrought with classical and legendary ages. Still you may see me carved in stone or chiselled in marble upon the facade of old-world temples, wrapping the sacred feet of a nymph or adorning the brows of an ancient river-god. Wild and terrible times they were, – those bygone days of poetic dæmon-worship; but there were noble lives lived, and fair examples set even then which many a Christian of today might worthily take for pattern. And if you care to know the story of such a life, though indeed a brief one, hear what the Spirit of the Water-reeds can tell.
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“Two thousand three hundred years ago, according to the measurement by which you mortals mete out eternity, I chanted my windy music about the shady margins of the river Permessus in Boeotia. That was a time of disaster and dread to all the broad land of Greece, for Xerxes, the Persian, had come into the country with an army which could scarce be counted for its vast multitude, and on all sides the peasants and the men-at-arms alike trembled at the bare thought of encountering the moving hosts of this terrible invader. There was a council held in the Isthmus of Corinth, and every Athenian and Spartan state sent deputies to assist at its deliberations; but the hearts of the sturdiest patriots misgave them in the midst of their courage, when they heard from certain of their countrymen who had been sent to watch at Sardis while Xerxes mustered his warriors there, how huge a host it was that the son of Darius was leading against the free homes and holy shrines of Greece.
“Close by a wind of the river Permessus, just where the waters met in a broad shallow pool, and where my green bristling spears were thickest and my music loudest, stood the homestead of a Thespian farmer named Stratiotes. His wife was a Spartan woman of a sweet countenance, and they had one child, some fifteen years old, crisp-haired and sinewy-limbed, a boy with the heart of a hero and the face of a god.
“Now when the war between the Persians and the Greeks began to be imminent, and the Isthmian council met to decide for the plans of defence, all the men of Thespia made an agreement among themselves to help in the army that was to be led against the enemy, for some of the people in the northern provinces, overcome with dread because of the vast multitude of the Persian ranks, were already shewing signs of a desire to submit tamely to the fate which they deemed inevitable, and were afraid to take up arms against the eastern power. But the Thespians were true men, and every one of them who was free to bear a weapon in defence of his country went eagerly to enrol himself in the guard which the council was about to send into Thessalia, to keep the passes there against the advancing foe. For otherwise they feared to be taken for traitors or cowards like their northern comrades, and they thirsted to prove their integrity in the eyes of all Greece.
“Then when the farmer Stratiotes heard that the men of Thespia were enlisting themselves to serve in the war against the Persian king, the fire of his great race kindled in his veins, and he longed to be out and away upon the march also, with the armies of his country, to shake his spear in the faces of the strangers, and to fight to the death for
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the holy fanes of Father Zeus and Hera the immortal Queen of heaven.
“ ‘It is to no noble end,’ said he to his wife, ‘that I remain here like a shepherd’s dog, minding my flocks or watching the boiling of the meal-pot, while the citizens gird on their armour and go out to battle like brave men. They shame me, and I cannot endure to live with the stain of a blush upon my forehead. What matter whether the kine fatten, or the fields yield well, or the barns be filled, when the ground upon which we tread trembles beneath the thunder of six million hostile feet, and the air we breathe is heavy with the sound of many tongues speaking a strange language? Let me be away, wife, where it becomes a Thespian to be, fighting for thee and for the land of Greece, by the side of Thespian men.’
“And Metis the wife made answer, raising her wise brave eyes to his, –
“ ‘I am a Spartan woman, – shall I bid thee refrain from battle? Go, my husband, and the gods of Greece go with thee!’
“And I heard the words, for Stratiotes and his wife stood in the door of their house as they conferred together, and the wind came up out of the river to mo, and I clapped my many-fingered hands and sang a pæon of strengthening assurance and patient hope.
“So the farmer called his son and said to him,
“ ‘Child, I am going to join the forces of Boeotia. Watch over the farm until I return, have a care of thy mother, and in my stead be master of my servants and of my cattle.’
“Then the boy lifted his face to his father’s, and I saw that the fierce blood of Theseus the slayer of the Minotaur, and of the divine son of Danae was aglow in his fervent eyes.
“ ‘Father!’ he cried, ‘let me also go with thee l Let me fight by thy side for the freedom and for the glory of our land!’
“But a cloud came over the countenance of the Thespian farmer, and he answered his son reproachfully.
“ ‘Boy, do I leave thee to a mean or an unworthy task? Art thou become too proud to serve the mother who bore thee, or too wise to mind thy father’s affairs?’
“And when the child reddened for shame and penitence, his mother spoke for him, taking him kindly by the hand ‘where he stood beneath the portico of the door, hanging his curly head in silence:
“ ‘He means no harm, Stratiotes; it is but natural that he should wish to be with thee, and so, too, should I, if I were strong enough to bear arms. But the time will come,’ she said, addressing herself to the boy, and caressing his thick
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tresses with her white fingers, ‘when thou, Iphios, shalt no longer be bidden to stay behind while thine elders go out to the battle. Next year, maybe, thy father himself will help thee to brace the war-harness upon thy limbs; meanwhile thou must be patient, and gather strength for the manhood that is to come to thee.’
“Then Iphios kissed his mother’s hand and promised obedience, and she bade him go straightway to his work again in the fields with the farm labourers. And as he went, taking the low path along the shores of the river, the water-reeds that stood in the shallows beckoned him with their lissome waving hands, and shook their long green tresses, and sang softly in his car of the blessed power and might of patience, that is able to make heroes of the feeble and the unrenowned, and gods of mortal men. And he passed on with the music of that song in his heart, to do his daily task in the pastures and orchards of his father.
“Not many days after that, Stratiotes departed to join the army that was to march northwards to keep the mountain passes against the Oriental hosts, and the Thespian came with his sword in his hand to bid his wife and his son farewell, as they two sat together by the margin of the river Permessus. And when Iphios rose up to greet his father, as the good fashion was in the old heathen times, when sons revered their sires and young men their elders, Stratiotes laid his hand upon the boy’s head and said to him:
“ ‘My son, I am going to leave thee a charge in my absence, which charge, if thou wouldst prove thyself a true Greek, thou wilt faithfully fulfil. For the first duty a soldier must learn is Obedience. I set thee, therefore, to keep house for me while I am away at the war, and to guard thy mother, and to look diligently after the herds, and the fields, and the barn-presses. Obey thy mother also in everything that she would have thee do, and make no excuse to her, whether her bidding seem right or not in thine eyes. Whenever I can, I will send messages to thee, to Let thee know how the campaigning prospers, and how it fares with me; but until I return, or thy mother desire it, desert not this house nor remove hence. We have both a service to do, my son; I, to fight for the land with sword and spear in the face of sudden alarms and dangers; thou, to abide in the gates of our home, doing the duty of a sentinel, – which is not the less the business of a soldier, – waiting patiently at thy post in all fidelity of heart and cheerfulness of mind. For if thou prove worthy in the easier charge, I shall the better know to trust thee by and by with a manlier. But for the present Iphios, have patience.’
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“Then he kissed his wife and the boy, and they all wept sore together, for they knew that farewell embrace might, perhaps. Be their last. And Stratiotes heaved up his sword upon his thigh, and turning his face away from home, sped forth towards the Thespian camp, and Metis and her son stood watching until the crest of his helmet dipped below the slope of the purple reach that outlay the farm-lands, and they could see him no more.
“So gladly in the valiant old days men went forth to lay down their lives for the honour of their gods and their nation; so patiently and bravely then, women and children yielded up their beloved if the voice of the country called her sons to arms! Ah, daughter of the Newer Age! your civilization and your international commerce have cost you a noble and a genuine passion; – patriotism is quenched under the bushels of modem policy and philosophy!”
And with the utterance of the last words, the voice of the phantom rises into a cry, a wailing, stirring cry, like two musical tones blent in one sound, a cry of mingled complaint and warming, and the shadowy palpitating form takes suddenly a brighter luminance, and comes out before me sharp and distinct in the midst of the soft light, as though the miraculous wind which environs it had fanned it into a vehement flame. But while I am watching, like flame it sinks again and grows shadowy as before, and the mystical breathing of the surrounding air only dallies lightly with the long floating veil and shroud-like garments that drape the shape of the spectre. And like the low symphony left among the swaying rushes when the blast that fiercely assailed them has passed away, recurs the plaintive recitative, soughing and sinking at intervals, but always conveying in every modulation a strong sense of latent power, self-restrained, and voluntarily repressed.
“Days and nights when they mete out times of prosperity and happy love are like tall polished columns of victory, garlanded with ample wreaths, and signalling each one some new delight or triumph. But days and nights when they measure the absence of a beloved one, are but blank unwelcome milestones, marking the way from Paradise across a barren and sunless waste, and without Patience one may well grow weary and faint on such a journey as that
“But although times were changed at the Thespian farm-house, and the voice and presence of its master no longer made it home, Metis and her son were no idle sentimentalists; and still the distaff was busy, and still the fleece was combed and carded, and the wool spun, and the hand-maidens were busy about their mistress with distaff and shuttle indoors, while Iphios and the men-servants toiled
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in the fields, or threshed and winnowed briskly in the barns and garner-sheds. For Patience is always cheerful.
“There came to the farm one day, not long after the departure of Stratiotes, a citizen of Thespia, who had often visited Metis and her husband in pleasanter times, and whom Stratiotes had now charged with a letter to her and to his son. And he wrote that the council had decreed to send four thousand men under the command of Leonidas, one of the kings of Sparta, to keep the pass of Thermopylæ by the Hot Gates, where were the warm sulphurous springs in which sick persons were wont to bathe, because there was medicinal virtue in the waters. Through this narrow pass, the land-troops of the Asiatic lord would be forced to make their track, for all along the southern boundary of Thessalia, the OEta hills rose up and barred the way against the advancing enemies of Greece. King Leonidas, – said the letter, – had brought with him three hundred men from Sparta, brave and lion-hearted as himself, and there were seven hundred Thespians, with Phocians and Thebans and men from Mycenæ; but at best it was a pitiful band to keep the Gates against so many thousand Legions as Xerxes was leading southward. And yet, notwithstanding this great disadvantage, Stratiotes bade his wife consider hopefully, that if Greece lacked in numbers, she was superior in moral power of resistance, because the soldiers of her scanty forces went forth as freemen to fight for their hearths and their holy shrines; but the myriads which swelled the Persian host were soulless mercenaries and wretched slaves, bribed for lust of gain to pander to the ambition of the Eastern tyrant, or torn peremptorily from their homes to serve an arbitrary master, in whose cause they had no natural interest, and for whom they could fed no devotion, sympathy or admiration. ‘To fight well,’ pursued Stratiotes, ‘one must not wear fetters.’
“I did not see the bearer of this letter deliver it to his friend’s wife, for she received him in the house; but when the family had dined, Metis and Iphios brought their guest out of doors, to sit in the customary seat on the river marge, under the larch and aspen trees, and there they talked together about the things Stratiotes had written. And when the visitor praised the gallant Leonidas and his Spartan comrades, and told Metis how, before they quitted their native city, they had caused their own funeral rites to be performed, believing so surely that they went forth to their deaths, and yet going so gladly, I perceived that the large dark eyes of Iphios glowed with intense longing, and more than once, involuntarily he clenched his hands, as though he felt within their grasp the hard unyielding sword-hilt, and
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oftentimes he sighed with all the bitterness of futile and passionate desire, while his glance roved about the quiet pasture and meadow-lands, and he panted for the stir of the fighting northward, and the clash of sounding spears and hauberks, and all the manly noise of war. But when the soft airs of the river shook the water-rushes, and they whispered their gurgling music and waved their blossoming russet heads to and fro, the fresh river smell came up from the midst of them, and cooled the fever in the burning heart of Iphios, filling it instead thereof with the strong refreshment of Patience. For the reeds have no luscious perfume like that of the flowers, they breathe only the keen peculiar scent of the water, from which they draw their sustenance, and the restoring strength of the wind which invigorates them. Even so also Patience makes not itself apparent by any acts or signal tokens of brilliant virtue, but is only the true and continuous evidence of the Christ-like life, and of the abiding presence of the Spirit of God. Therefore, also, the water-reeds are entirely green, which is the colour in particular of hope and refreshment, and, in the diviner sense, of that everlasting life which is the portion of the Saints who through patience inherit the promises of their Lord. Neither do the water-reeds bear flowers of any bright or delicate dyes, but only small brown-coloured blossoms, signifying thereby that Patience is not an active but a passive virtue, mightiest in retreat, and in its very nature repugnant to deeds of manifestation; since, as I have said already, it is rather the strength and setting of other virtues than an independent virtue of itself. Without green leaves the loveliest flowers would look amiss, losing both brilliance and grace; and without patience, all the virtues would be spasmodic and feeble, having neither power of continuance nor of edification.
“Hear further, therefore, child of this new impetuous age, what I did for Iphios the Thespian in the iron times of the long past. There were scant modes of correspondence then, and they who stayed at home were forced through many weary, anxious days and nights to endure the silence of their kindred in the camps, for messengers could rarely be sent unofficially, and horses’ feet are slower far than the steam and posts of modern years.
“Stratiotes went in the Grecian ranks to keep the gates of Thermopylæ, and there came to Metis and her son never a word nor a token of him for many a dreary day. But at last, one evening, as the twilight was beginning to fallow the country, and the western slopes of Mount Helicon had shut out the last low streaks of the sunset, it befell that Metis went out of the house with one of her maidens to gather simples, and perceived a small company of armed men
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eastward beyond the farm-lands, going slowly along the way to Thebes. And when she saw that they carried Grecian ensigns, she stood still and sent her maid to call Iphios to her from the farm-stores, where he was at his business; and when he came, she bade him run after the soldiers, and ask their leader what news he brought of the fight, and whether he or any of his battalion knew how Stratiotes fared.
“So Iphios went to meet the company, and Metis stood by the river with her handmaid, watching him, and awaiting his return; but the captain of the band, when Iphios had told him his errand, desired his comrades to halt beneath the trees of the roadside, and crossing the meadows with the boy, came back with him to Metis, and saluted her by name.
“ ‘Fair mistress,’ said he, ‘I would I had good tidings to give you, but the gods have ordered it otherwise. I and my company are Thebans, who return to our city after a long and toilsome journey, having chosen to abandon a leader hose designs for resisting Persia must assuredly end in miserable defeat.’
“ ‘Who is this leader, sir?’ asked Metis. “ ‘He is Leonidas,’ answered the Theban, ‘to whom four thousand men of Greece were lately entrusted, but now he commands only fourteen hundred.’
“ ‘Leonidas!’ cried the wife of Stratiotes. ‘Is not that the brave king of the race of Hercules, the warrior whom all Greece commended for his valiant heart?’
“ ‘That may be,’ replied the captain, scornfully,’ but I trow none have praised him for his wise head! By this time he has spilt the best blood of Greece in a vain and senseless struggle.’
“ ‘l pray you, sir,’ said Metis, ‘explain the meaning of your words, for my son and I know nothing of all these things.’
“ ‘Last night,’ answered the Theban, ‘a man from our camp, a traitor named Ephialtes, – may the gods torment him! – betrayed us to Xerxes, and shewed one of his generals a narrow way across the lower ridge of the mountains, where the woods are thickest, to the end that a Persian cohort might be led down into the valley of the Phocians which lies on the near side of the springs, so as to take us in the rear, enclosing our army on all sides with Asiatic forces. Very early therefore this morning, before the dawn, our guards perceived the shimmer of the Persian spears in the openings of the forest, and moreover, there came to us one from the outer wall of the Hot Gates, with news of the enemy’s movements. Then Leonidas, calling us together, warned us that before noon today we should be shut in by the foe who advanced every minute nearer upon our ranks, and that those
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of us who believed it would b indiscreet and blameable to resist such fearful odds, should retreat while there was time. Then Megistias the seer added his wise words, and testified that the portents of the victim slain that morning were of disaster, and doom, and death. And we, when we heard that, and knew that to remain in our place would be madness unworthy of free and prudent men, elected to depart homewards before the unequal strife began, and with us went also many others, so that we quitted the camp an army of two thousand six hundred. But Leonidas and his Spartans, with some eleven hundred more, preferred to stay at Thermopylæ, to be cut in pieces there like dead beasts in the shambles.’
“Then said Metis very earnestly, when the Theban captain had made an end of his story,
“ ‘Sir, did my husband remain behind, – Stratiotes the Thespian, – Is he still with Leonidas?’
“ ‘Mistress,’ answered the captain, ‘all the Thespian men remained, and Stratiotes was of the number. I myself beheld him burnishing his spear for the fight, as my cohort quitted the Gates.’
“ ‘l thank the gods!’ cried the Spartan woman, triumphantly, ‘for had Stratiotes returned with you, he should have tasted neither meat at my board nor rest upon my bed l But he was found worthier!’
“ ‘Mistress,’ retorted the Thespian, angrily, ‘your words are uncivil! Do you taunt me with cowardice? Is it right to waste the blood of noble men as water is poured upon some arid field?’
“ ‘Say, rather,’ responded Metis, fixing him with her mild wise eyes, ‘that such noble blood is sown as seed in a fruitful soil. For though indeed the ground receive it, there shall yet arise to Greece, from such deaths as these, a race of heroes, fired with admiration and love of their fathers, eager to imitate their deeds, and proud to follow the example of their glorious manhood. And in that coming generation of valiant soldiers, my son Iphios shall bear his part the better, remembering how dutifully his father feared not to die for the gods by the side of the brave Spartan king.’
“But when he heard that, the Theban laughed incredulously, and departed, muttering to himself; and Metis turned and looked at her boy.
“ ‘Iphios,’ she said, ‘even now he who gave thee thy life may have lost his own for the sake of Greece. Let us entreat the gods, my son, that thy father may not die in vain.’
“Then where the captain of the Theban deserters had left them, Iphios and his mother and her handmaid knelt and adored the Immortals, praying that albeit that very day, now
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dying behind the purple hills, should bear away with it into the place of shadows the spirits of Stratiotes and his fellow-soldiers, that yet the steadfast courage and undaunted service of so good and faithful a company might plead as a mighty oblation before the Divine Council, and redeem the land of Pallas Athenæ. And when the prayer was ended, I lifted up my voice in the river shallows, and sobbed from the midst of my blossoming heart, ‘Amen! Patience and faith-fulness shall conquer the world!’
“Then forthwith the night fell darkly about the land, and high above the slow-gliding waters the cohorts of heaven came forth from the purple pavilion of the Great King, immoveable and steadfast, armed with innumerable shafts of steely radiance, and glittering in burnished panoply, – star above star, with grand patient eyes of light, defending the gates of God.
“Two more days went by, and yet there came no tidings from Thermopylæ. Many times I saw Iphios ascend a small hill that was close by a coppice on the farm-lands, and stand there shading his eyes with his hand, while he looked out eastward for some messenger going to Thespia or to Thebes with news of Leonidas and of his battalions. But after he had watched for a good while in this manner without success, and it grew towards sunset on the third day, he espied a man running alone in the direction of the town, with rough uncovered hair, and his apparel in great disorder. As he ran he halted now and then, and sometimes stumbled, as though he were spent with fatigue, and his countenance was pallid and disfigured with dust and sweat. Iphios called loudly to him from the place where he stood watching on the hillock. ‘What news of the war, friend? l beseech thee, if thou knowest anything, give me tidings of King Leonidas and of the army at Thermopylæ, but specially of Stratiotes the Thespian!’
“Then, straightway, at the sound of her son’s cry, Metis opened the door of the house and came out to hear the news. And when Iphios perceived his mother he went to meet her, and the man whom he had hailed followed him also, panting for breath as he drew near. He was clad in the garb of a Spartan helot, and his dress was torn in many places and dabbled with mire, and his feet bled upon the ground as he trod. But before Metis and her son had time to note all these things, the man lifted up his voice and cried aloud, striking his breast as he spoke, like one who bewails a terrible calamity.
“ ‘Alas, sir! what tidings do you look for at my lips? I am the slave of the Spartan citizen Eurytus, and I am returning to my lord’s house with the news of his death.
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For Leonidas is killed, and all that remained with him at the Gates; not a man is left alive save myself and a few other helots, who fled to the mountains and hid there among the glens and morasses, waiting in despair and fear for a time to escape southwards. And as for that Stratiotes of whom you speak, I myself beheld him lying dead upon a heap of slain men, pierced with a score of Persian arrows, fallen with his face towards the camp of the enemy, for he died with his sword in his hand, and dropped upon the place where he fought But the victory was with the Asiatic king, and his army is even now marching southward behind my flying footsteps; fly also, therefore, while there is yet time; for Xerxes lost two thousand men at Thermopylæ:, so well and so bravely fought that handful of Grecian citizens; wherefore there is rage and vexation in the hearts of the Persian captains, and they will spare none, for they know not mercy.’
“And with that, the helot turned again, and fled on, as he had come.
“But when Metis heard that the victory was not with Greece, and that the Persians were marching towards Athens, the colour faded in her face, and she stood for a moment motionless and white as the marble divinity of a Phidian Pallas, with eyes that saw nothing save the passion of the burning soul behind them, and tense pallid lips restraining a fire of noble anger and regret, too hot, and fierce, and deep to find a vent in sound. So for a moment she stood; and then, tossing her arms above her veiled head, fell prone along the sedgy turf with a single half-articulate sigh, so low and soft that scarce the reeds themselves could catch the breath of it, and yet it was the burden of a true and livelong love, the utterance of a name that had been talisman to the most wondrous loyalty and the noblest fortitude the world ever witnessed.
“ ‘Greece!’
“Not her husband, not her own immediate loss and sorrow, nor the desolation of her home, nor her newly-made widow-hood; but the degradation, the disgrace of the country she loved l Gladly for Greece she had given Stratiotes, as she would have given Iphios also by-and-by, for indeed she knew that to them, likewise, it was honour to die in the war harness, and that to such great souls death brought neither darkness nor extinction, for the Immortals made heavenly beacons of them, that the whole world might see them through all the long years to come grand and peaceful in the blue open firmament: Perseus, and Bellerophon, and Heracles, and many another doer of glorious deeds, spirits of herpes that rejoice for ever with the holy gods themselves in the asphodel gardens of heaven.
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“ ‘Greece!’
“In that one word the Spartan woman uttered a whole creed, rich in the pathos of a master emotion which has long since died out of the earth; and fitly with the sound of the much-loved name upon her lips, she breathed away her soul, and passed with the dying sun through the dim haze of twilight to the land of another and a fairer dawn.
“Trembling and dismayed, Iphios raised his mother in his arms, and fixed upon the white deathly face that lay upturned in the grey light a gaze of earnest and terrible anguish. For through the half-closed lips of Metis, a thin scarlet stream flowed slowly downward upon her white vested bosom, staining its pure drapery and the white immobile hand drooping across it with a dye that was more intense and sudden in its warm clear brightness than the ruddiest bar of sunset in the western sky. In that shock of tempestuous grief which had broken up the great deeps of her heart, life itself had been rent away from her, and as Iphios breathlessly scanned the drooped, quivering eyelids, and heard the thick convulsive gurgle of blood in her throat, he knew that even then he was left to bear the coming doom alone. Where he knelt by the river-side, the golden glow of the sunset brightening his dark curls, and irradiating the wan, still face on his bosom with a rosy mocking flame that seemed to ape the semblance of that life which too much love and sorrow had quenched for evermore, the son of Metis and Stratiotes lifted up his heart to the gods of Greece, and prayed for the gift of Patience.
“ ‘Let me not fail in courage, O lords of heaven!’ he cried, ‘neither suffer me to weary in my obedience, for I come of a strong race that has always loved brave men, and hated renegades to the death. I am the son of a soldier, – Let mo live as my father died!’
“And the wind of the evening that bore aloft these holy words, swept across the shallows as it went, and awoke the music of God in the heart of the Water-reeds; and they stretched their long pliant arms towards the kneeling figure beside them, bending their stately, reverent heads, and calling to him:
“ ‘Take courage, Iphios, knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh Patience!’
“Then the sun sank; and the boy, lifting his gaze from the face of the dead, turned himself towards the west, where the glory: the day had gone down, and the cool vernal-eyed twilight, like the clear deep sea-green in summertime, covered the far reaches with the colour of Hope, spreading upward through the rising mists of earth till it touched the summit of heaven and lost itself there in the fulness of
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the sacred Amethyst. And while Iphios beheld it, the voice of the river-reeds answered him again from their place in the glassy water that was all bright and scintillant with the sheen of reflected glory:
“ ‘Take patience, Iphios, son of courage and of good counsel, for Patience is the beginning of Hope!’
* * * * * * * * * *
“They performed the funeral office for Metis in haste, because every hour the army of the Persians approached nearer and nearer; and when the last rites were over, the serving men and women besought Iphios to abandon the farm and retire with them to Trœzen or Ægina, ‘for thither,’ said they, ‘all the people of the country round us who value their lives have already fled.’
“But Iphios answered them; ‘Fly if you will, you are free to depart, for I will detain none of you. Bat as for me, your master charged me to stay at my post unless my mother bade me otherwise, and she died here giving me no word of dismissal nor even of warning. And, therefore, because the place of her death is dear to me, and because I hold my father’s house and goods as a sacred keeping, I shall abide by them, defending them as best I may, until the gods send us easier times, and I am able to recall you. But if not, I am still content, I can die in no better place than this.’
“So he sent them all away, and returned to the farm-stead alone. And day by day he went out as usual to his work, only that now he had to do the labour of the servants also; and the flocks were folded and the steers fed, as they had been before the herdsmen abandoned them, for Patience is not found in idleness, but in dutiful endurance.
“Then came the end. For one night, when the hours of the darkness were far spent, and Iphios was asleep in the house, and the stars were growing large and liquid with coming dawn, the reeds of the Permessian rivulet were moved by a strange, unwonted air, air that parched instead of refreshing, air that carried deadly heat and oppression on its swift wings, such as had never before breathed across the open pasture-levels of Boeotia.
“And over all the eastern reaches arose a red glowing-light that was not the light of dawn, and it smote full upon the closed casements of the farmhouse, and awoke the boy as he lay alone in his silent chamber within, dreaming perchance in fantastic allegories of the glory of that beatific vision yet unrevealed to men, but awaiting only the fulness of time to pour forth its wondrous consolation upon a noble army of martyrs and patient soldier-like saints, whose
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Captain Himself, God should one day make perfect through bitter suffering.
“But when the ardent glare of the eastern horizon pierced the drawn lattice and roused the lad to the sudden consciousness of some strange sight or impending disaster, he flung his mantle about him and came out of the house into the open air of night that was all astir with the fumes of that hot unwholesome breath, and with the quiver of blinding sparks drifting busily hither and thither with a curious semblance of life, like wheeling fire-flies; while anon from the heart of the red light came a humming, moaning sound, like the wailing of distant thunder, or the voice of a stormy sea against a rocky shore. And presently the white winged morning, wresting with night, broke up the short twilight of; the nether sky, and shaft upon shaft of black flame-pointed clouds, the last weapons of the yielding darkness, paled, and fell, one after one, quenched in the clear glistening flood of springing light. But from the reaches of the landscape beneath, sharp tongues of fire leaped up and rent the tremulous air, and swirling cumuli of dingy smoke, – broken and dashed by bright shoals of flying stars and flecks of scarlet glow, – rolled up slowly against the dawn, dense, and vest, and pregnant with the fumes of burning death, until they hung motionless above the eastern campania in gigantic wreaths, or floated away in slow-moving columns into the shadows of old mist-enshrouded Helicon. All the heavens were gorgeous with colour, rich and fierce, and full of strange contrast, such as no mortal hand could paint nor human tongue describe; scuds of burning rack and colossal curling clouds, heavy with gloom and underlapt with crimson bars of flame, were flung across a sky of mingling night and dawn; and here and there through the long dark rolls of vapour, calm silver stars, half dissolved in the paly light of morning, glinted in the far wan heights, standing out clear and distinct from the abyss that lay beyond them; faithful types of the steadfast promises of God, which in the breaking light of Christ’s dear Grace stand out plainer and larger from the bosom of the Father’s infinite Love. But of that holy mystery the son of the Thespian soldier knew nothing yet; therefore to him Patience was all the harder task, for he endured in darkness, serving God under a veil, and yet serving Him well. But now at last the night of his tribulation was far spent, and the day of his joy indeed at hand. Where he stood at his old post by the river shallows, whence he had so often watched in vain for news of the welfare of Greece, Iphios waited now for the last time, fastening his straining eyes upon the ruddy light that crept every minute
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hearer and nearer across the open plains, for the wind blew freshly from the cast. And before the child’s face the tufted branches of the coppice creaked and moaned like living creatures, as though they cried ‘Fire!’ and shook their twisted limbs for horror and pain; and the tall feathery grasses, bending under the scorching pestilent air that seared and shrivelled them as it passed along upon its deathly errand, smote their downy quaking crests together in confusion, and whispered the same fearful message of doom; ‘Fire, Fire! It is coming, – coming, and we cannot fly before it!’
“And overhead, beneath the circling volumes of smoke and eddying sparks, came vast flights of terrified birds, seared from their haunts and hurrying westward to take shelter in the hills, calling shrilly to one another as they shot across the glowing sky: ‘Fire! Fire! It is coming, – coming, we shall drop dead as we fly!’
“But Iphios stretched out his arms towards the gleaming cast, and broke into a great, wild lamentation, bitter with such an agony as no modern patriot can realize nor appreciate. It was the cry of a soul in despair, unchildlike in its awful intensity, unutterably pathetic in the yearning of its tenderness over a disappointed hope. In that one supreme minute the Grecian boy endured the grief of years, a bitterness worse than that of death smote upon his ardent heart, and rang out in the passionate words he spoke: and yet they were neither words of impatience nor of repining; they were rather a hero’s requiem, the monody of a weary martyrdom, long and cheerfully borne. And I doubt not but that in the eternal record which is kept beyond the stars, those patient words, uttered in an hour of such over-whelming regret, are accounted to that pagan child for an act of piety, if not of faith. Daughter of earth, God only knows the truth of these mysteries, and until He shall solve the enigma of Life, it remains with men to hope all things. But even now I see the son of Stratiotes, standing erect and beautiful with the blood-red reflection of the fire upon his lifted face and hands, and on the curving folds of his white garments; and even now I hear the sweet clear voice that pierced the burning air and cried, –
“ ‘Gods of my fathers, it is enough! I have seen the city of Thespia in flames l Let me die at my post as my father died, since the glory of Greece is dead also, and I may not live to save the land I love!’
“Alas, alas! if he could only have known how near at hand even then was the glory of Salamis and Platæa! But that cry betrayed him, and in betraying, gained its answer the self-same moment.
“For the Persian army, after having set fire to Thespia,
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passed on, taking the road to Athens, which Xerxes designed to burn also; and one of the mounted pioneers who went a little in advance of the body of the troops, hearing a voice cry out so dolefully in the Grecian tongue, looked about, and forthwith I suppose, espied Iphios.
“ ‘Here is another of the cursed brood,” quoth he, ‘croaking on the edge of his nest! Go, young sparrow, and join the other birds which have flown before thee!’
“With that he fitted an arrow to his bow, and aimed so well, and shot so fiercely, that the slender lance-wood burled itself to the middle in the boy’s heart, and he fell to the earth without a word, slain before he had time to see whence the death-shaft came, or opportunity to avenge the cowardly deed.
“He lay dead, his crispy dark hair resting upon the moist withies of the water-rushes, and his face turned towards the sunrise, and I knew that to him indeed a better and more perfect day had arisen, before which the perplexing shadows of earth had dissolved for ever, and that the God for whom he had waited patiently so long and so bravely had given him at last his very heart’s desire.
“There, where the boy lay dead among the flags and mossy weeds of the pool, the tall green water-reeds, tenderly sweeping his brows with their damp tresses, murmured in their refluent chant the burden of some such notes as these: ‘Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when He cometh shall find watching.’
“But even then, the parched air grew denser, and swift cloven tongues of flame licked up the bracken upon the slopeing river-bank, and hurried downward towards the shining stream. For the Persians, as they went on their way from Thespia to Platæa, following in the wake of that pioneer who had slain Iphios, wreaked their anger also upon the farm of Stratiotes, that they might leave nothing but desolation and ruin along the dismal track of their march through Greece. So, as they passed by, they cast burning brands upon the thatch of the homestead, and set fire to the casement caves, where for many long years the swallows had been wont to build, and the red roses to climb.
“Then the water-reeds bowed their comely, blossoming heads before the scathing flame that caught them in its strong torturing embrace and crushed the moist life from their hearts, and quenched itself, shrieking and curving and foaming like a thousand serpents in the cool waters of the stream.
“And I knew that my work also was finished upon earth, and gladly I sighed forth the essence of my soul, and mingled myself with the pure ranging winds of heaven, carrying up-ward into the rainbow-garden the eternal remembrance of
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a patriotism which had been truly a prayer, – the oblation of a patient endurance that had looked for no reward.”
There the musical voice of the phantom sinks into stillness, and for a little space I sit pondering upon the meaning of her last words, for they recall to my thoughts some of my many musings on the mysteries of God’s covenant with men. Greatly perplexed I turn again to the Spirit and beseech her to tell me whether such good pagans as those of whom she has spoken may be accounted true servants of the Christian’s God.
“It is written in the Hebrew Scriptures,” she answers,
“ ‘The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.’ In these days there is yet a worse saying uttered shamelessly by the lips of many who would fain be deemed holy, – ‘There is no God save for me and mine.’ But not the hearers, but the doers of the law are counted just before God. ‘For,’ says the Apostle of the Gentiles, ‘when they which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, unto the time of the revelation of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds. To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for honour, – immortality and eternal life. Glory and peace to every man that worketh good, whether he be under the law or no. For there shall be no respect of persons with God in the day when He judgeth the secrets of men.’ ‘He that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved!’ ”
A new thought comes into my mind, and, looking earnestly upon the shadowy features of the fair apparition, I cry exultingly, “Surely, then, this blessed truth of which you speak must be the reason, through the divine justice of God, that green which is by symbolism the colour of endurance, is also by the same symbolism the colour of Hope!”
The Spirit extends her filmy hands upward with a gesture of aspiration.
“Doubt it not!” she replies. “For this is the very motive of the celestial symphony which continually stirs the hearts of the water-reeds. In the gamut of their Eolian music there are seven tones, whereof the first is tribulation, passing through patience and experience unto hope. But the perfect octave is the fruition of the divine love shed upon the soul by the breath of the Holy Ghost. To him only who overcometh, in despite of failure, disaster and trouble, shall it be given to cat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”
But while the words are spoken, the floating shade begins to part and to recede from my sight, and as wave
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upon wave of airy motion sweeps over the cloudy form, I entreat the Spirit, ere she vanishes into the sunlight, to tell me whence comes the strange and rhymical wind which surrounds and supports her so mysteriously.
“Daughter of earth,” she responds, “this also is a parable. For this wind, though it continually rends and divides me, can yet in no wise dissolve my substance nor scatter my members, but the rather strengthens and renews me. So, likewise, the patient soul is neither distracted nor daunted by trial, but rather inflamed thereby to greater vitality. And as the Water-reeds cannot utter their music unless they are stirred and awakened by the breath of the wind, so neither can the soul of man give forth its melody of itself alone, but must be moved thereto by the power of the Spirit of God. ‘Unto Him therefore give the praise, who worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure!’ ”
And with that last word the phantom stretches her ghostly hands towards me in token of farewell, and before I can speak again she has melted into a ray of flickering sunshine, that dances and-twinkles gaily on the brown heads and green lissome stems of the rushes at my feet.
* * * * * * * * * *
Have I, after all, been dreaming again? Maybe; but the dream, I think, is worth remembering nevertheless. The air is growing chilly, – rise, my dear friend, you must surely have been asleep too! Good-bye, water-reeds, – we are going home!
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Atual Anterior: The Rose (Summer) Seguinte: The Marigold (Winter)
